Develop Reference

How can I prevent new instances of background processes when calling adb in python subprocess module

PROBLEM:
Every time I run this python function in my monkeyrunner.py script, it opens a new background instance of (cmd, adb, and conhost). And so, in my automation script, if I have a loop that uses that 100 times, I'm going to see 100 of each cmd, adb, and conhost running in the background (I know this because I enter "ps" in powershell to get the list of processes.) The purpose of the function, if you're curious, is to look for logcat messages from the USB attached Android tablet, to see when processes are finished, so that the script knows when to command screen touches to move forward with automation testing.
action = "____"
waitTime = 1
def adb(logMessage, action):
start = time.time()
p = subprocess.Popen("adb logcat -v time", shell=True, cwd="C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\Android\sdk\platform-tools", stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
for line in p.stdout:
if logMessage in line:
print("Found message!")
break
pass
else:
continue
QUESTION:
How can I use "subprocess" to open adb WITHOUT opening a new instance each time? Is there a way to close the subprocess in the same function?

2 things.
adb logcat is a blocking call. It doesn't return unless you send it a SIGINT (ctrl +c). So inside a script you have to send it the "-d" flag. If you forget your script will keep waiting.
you can wait for a subprocess to complete with p.wait()
Therefore you can try this
action = "____"
waitTime = 1
def adb(logMessage, action):
start = time.time()
p = subprocess.Popen("adb logcat -d -v time", shell=True, cwd="C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\Android\sdk\platform-tools", stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
#p.wait()
for line in p.stdout:
if logMessage in line:
print("Found message!")
break
pass
else:
continue
This will ensure that every adb session launched to look at logact terminates properly and its output is looked at only after it returns
EDIT: You are absolutely right, p.wait() isn't needed and is actually wrong! because the logcat writes more than 4kb to stdout in yourcase. You could try to use commuinicate instead to help with that

I figured it out. To prevent a new session of adb from opening in the background per each time this function is called, all I had to do is place the "p" variable outside the function.... like this...
p = subprocess.Popen("adb logcat -v time", shell=True, cwd="C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\Android\sdk\platform-tools", stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
action = "____"
waitTime = 1
def adb(logMessage, action):
start = time.time()
for line in p.stdout:
if logMessage in line:
print("Found message!")
break
pass
else:
continue
There is still the issue of a single adb session that opens and does not close after the script is run. So, now, instead of 180 sessions (or more) opening, there is a single one. If I find out how to close the session I will update this ticket.

Finding right Android touchscreen driver file

My goal is to add a single printk command to one of the driver files for my phone's touchscreen. I would like to run this printk command everytime the screen recieves touch input. I found the list of touchscreen driver files shown below. I'm just hoping someone with some experience might be able to point me to the correct file to place this printk command.
ad7877.c atmel_224e.c cy8ctmg110_ts.c gunze.c intel-mid-touch.c
max11801_ts.c pcap_ts.c touchit213.c ucb1400_ts.c wm9712.c
ad7879.c atmel_mxt_ts.c da9034-ts.c h3600_ts_input.c jornada720_ts.c
mc13783_ts.c penmount.c touchright.c usbtouchscreen.c wm9713.c
ad7879.h atmel_tsadcc.c dynapro.c hampshire.c Kconfig
mcs5000_ts.c s3c2410_ts.c touchwin.c w90p910_ts.c wm97xx-core.c
ad7879-i2c.c atmel-wm97xx.c eeti_ts.c hp680_ts_input.c lpc32xx_ts.c
migor_ts.c st1232.c tps6507x-ts.c wacom_w8001.c zylonite-wm97xx.c
ad7879-spi.c bu21013_ts.c elo.c htcpen.c mainstone-wm97xx.c
mk712.c stmpe-ts.c tsc2005.c wm831x-ts.c

First Check the Driver file by using the following command on terminal:
$logcat | grep EventHub
You will find all the input devices (Including your touch driver) in the prints.
Go to that file and add the print command in interrupt handler.

Try running the getevent command in a shell on the Android device. The touchscreen should be listed, and the name should be the driver being used.
Here's what came up on my phone:
add device 7: /dev/input/event1
name: "synaptics_dsx"
This means my phone uses the synaptics_dsx touchscreen driver.

How to launch android app through python

I want to run any app (say Settings) after rebooting tablet. Can I use os.system or do I have to use other methods.
import os,time
for i in range(0,3):
os.system("adb reboot")
time.sleep(60)

Yes, you can use os.system to execute ADB commands. If you want to validate the command executed successfully, take a look at the check_output(...) function which is apart of the subprocess library. This code snipet is how I choose to implement the check_output function. For the full code look here.
def _run_command(self, cmd):
"""
Execute an adb command via the subprocess module. If the process exits with
a exit status of zero, the output is encapsulated into a ADBCommandResult and
returned. Otherwise, an ADBExecutionError is thrown.
"""
try:
output = check_output(cmd, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)
return ADBCommandResult(0,output)
except CalledProcessError as e:
raise ADBProcessError(e.cmd, e.returncode, e.output)
To launch an application you can use the command am start -n yourpackagename/.activityname. To launch the Settings App, run adb shell am start -n com.android.settings/com.android.settings.Settings. This stackoverflow question shows you in detail the options you can use to start the application via a command line intent.
Other tips:
I created an ADB wrapper written in python along with a few other python utilities that may aid in what you are trying to accomplish. For example, instead of calling time.sleep(60) to wait for the reboot, you use adb to poll the status of the property sys.boot_completed and once the property is set the device has finished booting and you can launch any application. Below is a reference implementation you can use.
def wait_boot_complete(self, encryption='off'):
"""
When data at rest encryption is turned on, there needs to be a waiting period
during boot up for the user to enter the DAR password. This function will wait
till the password has been entered and the phone has finished booting up.
OR
Wait for the BOOT_COMPLETED intent to be broadcast by check the system
property 'sys.boot_completed'. A ADBProcessError is thrown if there is an
error communicating with the device.
This method assumes the phone will eventually reach the boot completed state.
A check is needed to see if the output length is zero because the property
is not initialized with a 0 value. It is created once the intent is broadcast.
"""
if encryption is 'on':
decrypted = None
target = 'trigger_restart_framework'
print 'waiting for framework restart'
while decrypted is None:
status = self.adb.adb_shell(self.serial, "getprop vold.decrypt")
if status.output.strip() == 'trigger_restart_framework':
decrypted = 'true'
#Wait for boot to complete. The boot completed intent is broadcast before
#boot is actually completed when encryption is enabled. So 'key' off the
#animation.
status = self.adb.adb_shell(self.serial, "getprop init.svc.bootanim").output.strip()
print 'wait for animation to start'
while status == 'stopped':
status = self.adb.adb_shell(self.serial, "getprop init.svc.bootanim").output.strip()
status = self.adb.adb_shell(self.serial, "getprop init.svc.bootanim").output.strip()
print 'waiting for animation to finish'
while status == 'running':
status = self.adb.adb_shell(self.serial, "getprop init.svc.bootanim").output.strip()
else:
boot = False
while(not boot):
self.adb.adb_wait_for_device(self.serial)
res = self.adb.adb_shell(self.serial, "getprop sys.boot_completed")
if len(res.output.strip()) != 0 and int(res.output.strip()) is 1:
boot = True

Set clipboard text via adb shell as of API level 11

Before API level 11, it was possible to set the content of the clipboard by using the service program on the adb shell:
service call SERVICE CODE [i32 INT | s16 STR] ...
Options:
i32: Write the integer INT into the send parcel.
s16: Write the UTF-16 string STR into the send parcel.
There were three integer codes to define the methods:
1 TRANSACTION_getClipboardText
2 TRANSACTION_setClipboardText
3 TRANSACTION_hasClipboardText
For instance this command
$ adb shell service call clipboard 2 i32 1 i32 1 s16 "Hello Android!"
set the clipboard's content to "Hello Android!". As of API level 11 the listed methods are deprecated and the new ones take ClipData as an argument. How do you set the clipboard content now via adb shell?

You've asked two different questions here. The service calls are not related to the API functions.
Android is in general overly-aggressive about marking APIs as deprecated. In this case, it only means that there are new functions with more functionality. The functionality of getText(), hasText(), and setText() still exists and those functions will continue to work, but they are now implemented as trivial wrappers around the newer functions.
As far as the service calls go, those are an internal implementation detail and as you've noticed are not guaranteed to work across Android versions. If you peer into the Android source code, you'll find these transactions currently defined:
TRANSACTION_setPrimaryClip = 1
TRANSACTION_getPrimaryClip = 2
TRANSACTION_getPrimaryClipDescription = 3
TRANSACTION_hasPrimaryClip = 4
TRANSACTION_addPrimaryClipChangedListener = 5
TRANSACTION_removePrimaryClipChangedListener = 6
TRANSACTION_hasClipboardText = 7
The source code also indicates what parameters these transactions require. Unfortunately, TRANSACTION_setPrimaryClip requires a ClipData, which is not an i32 or an s16 and thus is not compatible with service call. We have bigger problems than that however; these transactions require the calling package name as a parameter, and the clipboard service validates that the specified package name matches the calling uid. When using the adb shell, the calling uid is either UID_ROOT or UID_SHELL, neither of which owns any packages, so there is no way to pass that check. Simply put, the new clipboard service cannot be used this way.
What can you do about all this? You can create your own service for manipulating the clipboard from the commandline and install it onto your device. I don't know if there's any way to extend service call, but you can use am startservice as a suitable replacement. If you've created and installed that custom clipboard service, then you could invoke it as:
am startservice -a MySetClipboard -e text "clipboard text"
The code to implement this service could look like this:
public MyService extends Service {
public int onStartCommand(Intent intent, int flags, int startId) {
String text = intent.getStringExtra("text");
ClipboardManager.setText(text);
stopSelf();
return START_NOT_STICKY;
}
}
The service should have an intent-filter that declares it capable of handling the MySetClipboard intent action.

I found a way to do this using com.tengu.sharetoclipboard. You install it with F-Droid, then you start it with am over adb with the following arguments:
adb shell am start-activity \
-a android.intent.action.SEND \
-e android.intent.extra.TEXT <sh-escaped-text> \
-t 'text/plain' \
com.tengu.sharetoclipboard
<sh-escaped-text> is the new contents of the android clipboard. Note that this text must be escaped so that it is not interpreted specially by sh on the remote end. In practice, that means surrounding it with single quotes and replacing all single quotes with '\''. For instance, this would work fine if the local shell is fish:
adb shell am start-activity \
-a android.intent.action.SEND \
-e android.intent.extra.TEXT '\'I\'\\\'\'m pretty sure $HOME is set.\'' \
-t 'text/plain' \
com.tengu.sharetoclipboard
After fish parses it, the argument is 'I'\''m pretty sure $HOME is set.'. After sh parses it, the argument is I'm pretty sure $HOME is set..
Here's a python script to simplify this process:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
import os
def shsafe(s):
return "'" + s.replace("'", "'\\''") + "'"
def exec_adb(text):
os.execvp('adb', [
'adb', 'shell', 'am', 'start-activity',
'-a', 'android.intent.action.SEND',
'-e', 'android.intent.extra.TEXT', shsafe(text),
'-t', 'text/plain',
'com.tengu.sharetoclipboard',
])
if sys.stdin.isatty():
if len(sys.argv) >= 2:
exec_adb(' '.join(sys.argv[1:]))
else:
sys.stderr.write(
'''Send something to the android clipboard over ADB. Requires
com.tengu.sharetoclipboard.
acb <text>
<some command> | acb
acb <some_text_file.txt''')
exit(1)
else:
exec_adb(sys.stdin.read())

Pasting text into Android emulator clipboard using adb shell

I need to paste text into the Android emulator clipboard using adb shell.
tried on Android 1.6 and 2.3.1
I tried to use adb shell command: clipboard:[android.text.iclipboard]
"service call clipboard" where service codes are 1, 2, and 3, for getClipboardText, setClipboardText, and hasClipboardText respectively.
service call clipboard 2 s16 thisisinsertedtext
does not seem to work
while
service call clipboard 1
shows the content of clipboard:
service call clipboard 1
Result: Parcel(
0x00000000: 00000000 00000001 00000001 00000004 '................'
0x00000010: 00650074 00740078 00000000 't.e.x.t..... ')
Please advise how to set a value for emulator clipboard!

Use below command.
service call clipboard 2 i32 1 i32 18 s16 thisisinsertedtext
I think that the first one, "i32 1" is how many elements in clipboard. So, just one.
Second is a length of string.
The command written above shows...
Result: Parcel(00000000 '....')
This usually means OK, no error.
So, my question is, is there any way to copy unicode string?
I mean, muti-byte character sets, like Korean.
I tried many way, but it failed.

Looks like all 3 old methods are deprecated since API Level 11 so it won’t work for ICS
Not clear if it's even possible to make it work with service call clipboard anymore...
static final int TRANSACTION_getClipboardText 1
static final int TRANSACTION_hasClipboardText 3
static final int TRANSACTION_setClipboardText 2
www.androidjavadoc.com/1.0_r1_src/constant-values.html
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/ClipboardManager.html
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/text/copy-paste.html

adb shell service call clipboard 2 i32 1 i32 1 s16 "你好吗"
Result: Parcel(00000000 '....')
That is OK.
"你好吗" is Chinese character.
The second 'i32 1' can be any integer, maybe...

Try this:
i32: Write the integer INT into the send parcel.
s16: Write the UTF-16 string STR into the send parcel.

Using adb shell command directly do not work since API Level 11.
Here is a solution.

There is an open source python script that can deal with the severe limitations: https://github.com/gcb/AdbPaste - and it works well enough except for long clipboard file uploads it's incredibly slow (200 line text file can take 20 minutes).
I found some code on GitHub for an app called clipper that can use adb to populate clipboard via a broadcast intent. I enhanced it to read from a file, the enhanced code is here: https://github.com/RoundSparrow/clipper
Build the app, install on the device. Now I can use ADB commands to populate the clipboard via a file. Works like a charm for a 3 page script I need to upload. Essentially you use like this:
adb push clipboard_content_file.txt /sdcard/clipboard_content_file.txt
adb shell am broadcast -a clipper.setfile -e filepath \'/sdcard/clipboard_content_file.txt\'
It's much faster AdbPaste, it takes only a second or two regardless of the size of the clipboard content.