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Architecture

WhatsFly is designed as a bridge between Python and a high-performance WhatsApp implementation in Go.

High-Level Overview

The project consists of two main parts:

  1. Go Backend (backend/): Built on top of the whatsmeow library. It handles the low-level WhatsApp web protocol, socket connections, encryption, and media processing.
  2. Python Frontend (whatsfly/): Provides a user-friendly Pythonic interface. It communicates with the Go backend using Python's ctypes library.

Communication (FFI)

The Go backend is compiled into a C-shared library (.so, .dll, or .dylib).

  • Calls from Python to Go: Methods like sendMessage or connect call wrapped Go functions exported through the shared library.
  • Calls from Go to Python (Callbacks): When an event occurs (like a new message), the Go backend calls a C-compatible callback function registered by the Python wrapper.

Threading

  • Message Thread: When you initialize the WhatsApp class, a background thread is started in Python. This thread continuously calls into the Go library to process incoming network events and trigger the registered callbacks.
  • Concurrency: The Go backend uses goroutines for internal tasks, while the Python frontend relies on standard threading to ensure the UI or main script remains responsive.

Data Persistence

WhatsFly uses SQLite for data persistence, managed by the Go backend. - Session Data: Stored in wapp.db within your specified database_dir (default is ./whatsapp/). This keeps your login session active across restarts. - Media: If enabled, media is saved directly to the filesystem in the directory specified by media_path.