Introduction
============

pylibftdi is a minimal Pythonic interface to FTDI devices using libftdi_.

.. _libftdi: https://www.intra2net.com/en/developer/libftdi/

:Features:

 - No dependencies beyond standard library and a `libftdi` install.
 - Supports parallel and serial devices
 - Support for multiple devices
 - File-like interface wherever appropriate
 - Cross-platform

Usage
-----

The primary interface is the ``Device`` class in the pylibftdi package; this
gives serial access on relevant FTDI devices (e.g. the UM232R), providing a
file-like interface (read, write).  Baudrate is controlled with the ``baudrate``
property.

If a Device instance is created with ``mode='t'`` (text mode) then read() and
write() can use the given ``encoding`` (defaulting to latin-1). This allows
easier integration with passing unicode strings between devices.

Multiple devices are supported by passing the desired device serial number (as
a string) in the ``device_id`` parameter - this is the first parameter in both
Device() and BitBangDevice() constructors. Alternatively the device 'description'
can be given, and an attempt will be made to match this if matching by serial
number fails.

Examples
~~~~~~~~

::

    >>> from pylibftdi import Device
    >>>
    >>> with Device(mode='t') as dev:
    ...     dev.baudrate = 115200
    ...     dev.write('Hello World')

The pylibftdi.BitBangDevice wrapper provides access to the parallel IO mode of
operation through the ``port`` and ``direction`` properties.  These provide an
8 bit IO port including all the relevant bit operations to make things simple.

::

    >>> from pylibftdi import BitBangDevice
    >>>
    >>> with BitBangDevice('FTE00P4L') as bb:
    ...     bb.direction = 0x0F  # four LSB are output(1), four MSB are input(0)
    ...     bb.port |= 2         # set bit 1
    ...     bb.port &= 0xFE      # clear bit 0

There is support for a number of external devices and protocols, including
interfacing with HD44780 LCDs using the 4-bit interface.

History & Motivation
--------------------
This package is the result of various bits of work using FTDI's
devices, primarily for controlling external devices.  Some of this
is documented on the codedstructure blog, codedstructure.blogspot.com

Several other open-source Python FTDI wrappers exist, and each may be
best for some projects. Some aim at closely wrapping the libftdi interface,
others use FTDI's own D2XX driver (ftd2xx_) or talk directly to USB via
libusb or similar (such as pyftdi_).

.. _ftd2xx: https://pypi.org/project/ftd2xx/
.. _pyftdi: https://github.com/eblot/pyftdi

The aim for pylibftdi is to work with libftdi, but to provide
a high-level Pythonic interface.

License
-------

Copyright (c) 2010-2026 Ben Bass <benbass@codedstructure.net>

pylibftdi is released under the MIT licence; see the file "LICENSE.txt"
for information.

All trademarks referenced herein are property of their respective
holders.
libFTDI itself is developed by Intra2net AG.  No association with
Intra2net is claimed or implied, but I have found their library
helpful and had fun with it...