Django SMS
django-sms is a Django app for sending SMS with interchangeable backends. The module is heavily based upon and structured the same way as the django.core.mail module.
Sending SMS
These wrappers are provided to make sending SMS extra quick, to help test SMS sending during development, and to provide additional SMS gateways.
Quick example
In two lines:
from sms import send_sms
send_sms(
'Here is the message',
'+12065550100',
['+441134960000'],
fail_silently=False
)The text messages are sent using one of the configured SMS backends.
send_sms()
send_sms(body, originator, recipients, fail_silently=False, connection=None)
In most cases, you can send text messages using sms.send_sms().
The message, originator and recipients parameters are required.
- message: A string.
- originator: A string. If None, django-sms will use the DEFAULT_FROM_SMS setting.
- recipients: A list of strings, each an phone number.
- fail_silently: A boolean. When it's False, send_sms() will raise an exception if an error occurs. See the SMS backends documentation for a list of possible exceptions.
- connection: The optional SMS backend to use to send the text message. If unspecified, an instance of the default backend will be used. See the documentation of SMS backends for more details.
The return value will be the number of successfully delivered text messages.
Examples
This sends a text message to +44 113 496 0000 and +44 113 496 0999:
send_sms(
'Here is the message',
'+12065550100',
['+441134960000', '+441134960999']
)The Message class
django-sms' send_sms() function is actually a thin wrapper that makes use of the Message class.
Not all features of the Message class will be available though the send_sms() and related wrapper functions. If you wish to use advanced features, you'll need to create Message instances directly.
Note: This is a design feature. send_sms() was originally the only interfaces django-sms provided.
Message is responsible for creating the text message itself. The SMS backend is then responsible for sending the SMS.
For convenience, Message* provides a send() method for sending a single text message. If you need to send multiple text messages, the SMS backend API provides alternatives.
Message Objects
class Message
The Message class is initialized with the following parameters (in the given order, if positional arguments are used). All parameters are optional and can be set at any time prior to calling the send() method.
- body: The body text. This should be a plain text message.
- originator: The sender of the text message.
- recipients: A list or tuple of recipient phone numbers.
- connection: An SMS backend instance. Use this parameter if you want to use the same connection for multiple text messages. If omitted, a new connection is created when send() is called.
For example:
from sms import Message
message = Message(
'Here is the message',
'+12065550100',
['+441134960000']
)The class has the following methods:
- send(fail_silently=False) sends the text message. If a connection was specified when the text message was constructed, that connection will be used. Otherwise, an instance of the default backend will be instantiated and used. If the keyword argument fail_silently is True, exceptions raised while sending the text messages will be quashed. An empty list of recipients will not raise an exception.
SMS backends
The actual sending of an SMS is handled by the SMS backend.
The SMS backend class has the following methods:
- open() instantiates a long-lived SMS-sending connection.
- close() closes the current SMS-sending connection.
It can also be used as a context manager, which will automatically call open() and close() as needed:
import sms
with sms.get_connection() as connection:
sms.Message(
'Here is the message', '+12065550100', ['+441134960000'],
connection=connection
).send()
sms.Message(
'Here is the message', '+12065550100', ['+441134960000'],
connection=connection
).send()Obtaining an instance of an SMS backend
The sms.get_connection() function in sms returns an instance of the SMS backend that you can use.
get_connection(backend=None, fail_silently=False, *args, **kwargs)
By default, a call to get_connection() will return an instance of the SMS backend specified in SMS_BACKEND. If you specify the backend argument, an instance of that backend will be instantiated.
The fail_silently argument controls how the backend should handle errors. If fail_silently is True, exceptions during the SMS sending process will be silently ignored.
All other arguments are passed directly to the constructor of the SMS backend.
django-sms ships with several SMS sending backends. Some of these backends are only useful during testing and development. If you have special SMS sending requirements, you can write your own SMS backend.
Console backend
Instead of sending out real text messages the console backend just writes the text messages that would be sent to the standard output. By default, the console backend writes to stdout. You can use a different stream-like object by providing the stream keyword argument when constructing the connection.
SMS_BACKEND = 'sms.backends.console.SmsBackend'This backend is not intended for use in production - it is provided as a convenience that can be used during development.
File backend
The file backend writes text messages to a file. A new file is created for each session that is opened on this backend. The directory to which the files are written is either taken from the SMS_FILE_PATH setting or file the file_path keyword when creating a connection with get_connection().
To specify this backend, put the following in your settings:
SMS_BACKEND = 'sms.backends.filebased.SmsBackend'
SMS_FILE_PATH = '/tmp/app-messages' # change this to a proper locationThis backend is not intended for use in production - it is provided as a convenience that can be used during development.
In-memory backend
The 'locmen' backend stores text messages in a special attribute of the sms module. The outbox attribute is created when the first message is sent. It's a list with an Message instance of each text message that would be sent.
To specify this backend, put the following in your settings:
SMS_BACKEND = 'sms.backends.locmem.SmsBackend'This backend is not intended for use in production - it is provided as a convenience that can be used during development.
Dummy backend
As the name suggests the dummy backend does nothing with your text messages. To specify this backend, put the following in your settings:
SMS_BACKEND = 'sms.backends.dummy.SmsBackend'This backend is not intended for use in production - it is provided as a convenience that can be used during development.
MessageBird backend
The MessageBird backend sends text messages using the MessageBird SMS API. To specify this backend, put the following in your settings:
SMS_BACKEND = 'sms.backends.messagebird.SmsBackend'
MESSAGEBIRD_ACCESS_KEY = 'live_redacted-messagebird-access-key'Make sure the MessageBird Python SDK is installed by running the following command:
pip install "django-sms[messagebird]"Twilio backend
The Twilio backend sends text messages using the Twilio SMS API. To specify this backend, put the following in your settings:
SMS_BACKEND = 'sms.backends.twilio.SmsBackend'
TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID = 'live_redacted-twilio-account-sid'
TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN = 'live_redacted-twilio-auth-token'Make sure the Twilio Python SDK is installed by running the following command:
pip install "django-sms[twilio]"Defining a custom SMS backend
If you need to change how text messages are sent you can write your own SMS backend. The SMS_BACKEND setting in your settings file is then the Python import path for you backend class.
Custom SMS backends should subclass BaseSmsBackend that is located in the sms.backends.base module. A custom SMS backend must implement the send_messages(messages) method. This methods receives a list of Message instances and returns the number of successfully delivered messages. If your backend has any concept of a persistent session or connection, you should also implement open() and close() methods. Refer to one of the existing SMS backends for a reference implementation.
Signals
django-sms provides a set of built-in signals that let user code get notified by Django itself of certain actions. These include some useful notifications:
sms.signals.post_send
Sent after send() is called on a Message instance. Arguments sent with this signal:
- sender: The Message class.
- instance: The actual Message instance being send.
Acknowledgement
This project is heavily based upon the django.core.mail module, with the modified work by Roald Nefs. The Django license is included with django-sms.
