MicroPython libraries
Warning
Important summary of this section
MicroPython implements a subset of Python functionality for each module.
To ease extensibility, MicroPython versions of standard Python modules
usually have u (“micro”) prefix.
Any particular MicroPython variant or port may miss any feature/function
described in this general documentation (due to resource constraints or other
limitations).
This chapter describes modules (function and class libraries) which are built into
MicroPython. There are a few categories of such modules:
Modules which implement a subset of standard Python functionality and are
not intended to be extended by the user.
Modules which implement a subset of Python functionality, with a provision
for extension by the user (via Python code).
Modules which implement MicroPython extensions to the Python standard
libraries.
Modules specific to a particular MicroPython port and thus not portable.
Note about the availability of the modules and their contents: This documentation in
general aspires to describe all modules and functions/classes which are implemented in
MicroPython project. However, MicroPython is highly configurable, and each port to a
particular board/embedded system makes available only a subset of MicroPython
libraries. For officially supported ports, there is an effort to either filter out non-
applicable items, or mark individual descriptions with “Availability:” clauses describing
which ports provide a given feature.
With that in mind, please still be warned that some functions/classes in a module (or
even the entire module) described in this documentation may be unavailable in a
particular build of MicroPython on a particular system. The best place to find general
information of the availability/non-availability of a particular feature is the “General
Information” section which contains information pertaining to a specific MicroPython
port.
On some ports you are able to discover the available, built-in libraries that can be
imported by entering the following at the REPL:
help('modules')
Beyond the built-in libraries described in this documentation, many more modules from
the Python standard library, as well as further MicroPython extensions to it, can be
found in micropython-lib .
Python standard libraries and micro-libraries
The following standard Python libraries have been “micro-ified” to fit in with the
philosophy of MicroPython. They provide the core functionality of that module and are
intended to be a drop-in replacement for the standard Python library. Some modules
below use a standard Python name, but prefixed with “u”, e.g. ujson instead of json .
This is to signify that such a module is micro-library, i.e. implements only a subset of
CPython module functionality. By naming them differently, a user has a choice to write a
Python-level module to extend functionality for better compatibility with CPython
(indeed, this is what done by the micropython-lib project mentioned above).
On some embedded platforms, where it may be cumbersome to add Python-level
wrapper modules to achieve naming compatibility with CPython, micro-modules are
available both by their u-name, and also by their non-u-name. The non-u-name can be
overridden by a file of that name in your library path ( sys.path ). For
example, import json will first search for a file json.py (or package directory json ) and
load that module if it is found. If nothing is found, it will fallback to loading the built-
in ujson module.
Builtin functions and exceptions
cmath – mathematical functions for complex numbers
gc – control the garbage collector
math – mathematical functions
uarray – arrays of numeric data
uasyncio — asynchronous I/O scheduler
ubinascii – binary/ASCII conversions
ucollections – collection and container types
uerrno – system error codes
uhashlib – hashing algorithms
uheapq – heap queue algorithm
uio – input/output streams
ujson – JSON encoding and decoding
uos – basic “operating system” services
ure – simple regular expressions
uselect – wait for events on a set of streams
usocket – socket module
ussl – SSL/TLS module
ustruct – pack and unpack primitive data types
usys – system specific functions
utime – time related functions
uzlib – zlib decompression
_thread – multithreading support
MicroPython-specific libraries
Functionality specific to the MicroPython implementation is available in the following
libraries.
btree – simple BTree database
framebuf — frame buffer manipulation
machine — functions related to the hardware
micropython – access and control MicroPython internals
network — network configuration
ubluetooth — low-level Bluetooth
ucryptolib – cryptographic ciphers
uctypes – access binary data in a structured way
Port-specific libraries
In some cases the following port/board-specific libraries have functions or classes similar
to those in the machine library. Where this occurs, the entry in the port specific library
exposes hardware functionality unique to that platform.
To write portable code use functions and classes from the machine module. To access
platform-specific hardware use the appropriate library, e.g. pyb in the case of the
Pyboard.
Libraries specific to the pyboard
The following libraries are specific to the pyboard.
pyb — functions related to the board
Time related functions
Reset related functions
Interrupt related functions
Power related functions
Miscellaneous functions
Classes
o lcd160cr — control of LCD160CR display
class LCD160CR
Constructors
Static methods
Instance members
Setup commands
Pixel access methods
Drawing text
Drawing primitive shapes
Touch screen methods
Advanced commands
Constants
Libraries specific to the WiPy
The following libraries and classes are specific to the WiPy.
wipy – WiPy specific features
Functions
o class ADCWiPy – analog to digital conversion
Constructors
Methods
o class ADCChannel — read analog values from internal or external sources
o class TimerWiPy – control hardware timers
Constructors
Methods
o class TimerChannel — setup a channel for a timer
Methods
Constants
Libraries specific to the ESP8266 and ESP32
The following libraries are specific to the ESP8266 and ESP32.
esp — functions related to the ESP8266 and ESP32
Functions
o esp32 — functionality specific to the ESP32
Functions
Flash partitions
RMT
Ultra-Low-Power co-processor
Constants
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