An update: it's possible to send the M3U8 playlist (or whatever other content) to Kodi via a socket right after it starts playing an item, instead of writing a file.
This keeps everything in memory without the need to create a temporary file.
Since we know that Kodi (or rather, FFMpeg or InputStream.Adaptive) sends out a GET request for the content, we can implement this via a simple socket instead of having to import and use a full server library that supports the entire HTTP specification.
This was tested on Kodi 18.9 Leia, with Python 2. I believe it works in Python 3 all the same.
The usage is this:
python:
manifestContent = ... # Your text data, a UTF-8 string.
serveLocation = '192.168.1.27' # Local IP of your device.
servePort = 8081
item.setPath('http://%s:%d/manifest.mpd' % (serveLocation, servePort))
with ServeOnceManager(manifestContent, 'application/dash+xml', serveLocation, servePort):
xbmcplugin.setResolvedUrl(PLUGIN_ID, True, item)
The ServeOnceManager class and the standard import needed is this:
python:
import socket
# A context manager for use with Kodi playback, to serve some simple text in
# memory to the Kodi player (which sends a GET request) and then stops serving.
# Can be used for MPEG-DASH .MPD manifests, HLS .M3U8 master playlists etc.
#
# Used like this, together with xbmcplugin.setResolvedUrl():
#serveLocation = '192.168.1.27' # Local IP of your device.
#servePort = 8081
#item.setPath('http://%s:%d/manifest.mpd' % (serveLocation, servePort))
#with ServeOnceManager(manifestContent, 'application/dash+xml',
# serveLocation, servePort):
# xbmcplugin.setResolvedUrl(PLUGIN_ID, True, item)
class ServeOnceManager(object):
def __init__(self, text, mimeType, hostStr, portInt):
self.text = text
self.mimeType = mimeType
self.hostStr = hostStr
try:
self.portInt = int(portInt)
except:
raise Exception('Expected an int for portInt, like 8080, '
'instead got ' + str(type(portInt)))
def __enter__(self, *args, **kwargs):
serverSocket = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
serverSocket.setsockopt(socket.SOL_SOCKET, socket.SO_REUSEADDR, 1)
serverSocket.settimeout(1.0)
try:
serverSocket.bind((self.hostStr, self.portInt))
serverSocket.listen(1)
self.serverSocket = serverSocket
except Exception as e:
raise Exception('Failed to serve on "%s:%d"'
% (self.hostStr, self.portInt), e)
def __exit__(self, *args, **kwargs):
connection = None
attempts = 5
while attempts:
try:
connection, clientAddress = self.serverSocket.accept()
connection.settimeout(1.0)
pieces = []
subAttempts = 5
while subAttempts:
piece = connection.recv(8192)
pieces.append(piece)
if b'\r\n\r\n' in piece:
# Body separator present, the incoming message is complete.
break
elif piece:
subAttempts -= 1
else:
raise Exception('Incomplete response')
message = b''.join(pieces)
if not message:
raise Exception('Empty response')
try:
if message.startswith(b'GET '):
rawText = self.text.encode('utf-8')
# Copied from StreamCatcher.
rawResponse = (
b'HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\n' # Response status.
b'Allow: GET\r\n' # Acceptable request commands.
#b'Date: {date}\r\n' # HTTP-formatted date.
b'Server: Web/0.1\r\n'
b'Connection: close\r\n'
b'Content-Type: {mimeType}\r\n'
b'Content-Length: {length}\r\n' # Length in bytes.
b'\r\n{body}' # Body of the response, if any.
).format(mimeType=self.mimeType, length=len(rawText),
body=rawText)
connection.sendall(rawResponse)
else:
rawResponse = (b'HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found'
b'Content-Length: 13\r\n'
b'Content-Type: text/plain; '
b'charset=utf-8\r\n'
b'\r\n'
b'404 Not Found')
connection.sendall(rawResponse)
break
except Exception as e:
raise Exception('Error during sendall()', e)
except socket.timeout as e:
pass
if connection:
try:
connection.shutdown(socket.SHUT_RDWR)
connection.close()
except:
pass
try:
self.serverSocket.close()
except Exception as e:
raise Exception('Failed to close the server')
PS the "attempts" and "subAttempts" looping logic is just a precaution. In all my tests, the connection was formed right on the first attempt.
