The I2C port needs to be enabled in kernel before you can use it. This can be achieved by

sudo modprobe i2c-dev 

Then I²C bus interfaces can be listed by

sudo i2cdetect -l

At the command prompt type one of these depending on whether you are using the I2C-X port:

sudo i2cdetect -y X

The 7 bit I2C address of all found devices will be shown (ignoring the R/W bit, so I2C address 0000 0110 is displayed as hex 03).

SMBus (System Management Bus) is a subset from the I2C protocol When writing a driver for an I2C device try to use the SMBus commands only (if it possible). It makes possible to use the device driver on both SMBus adapters and I2C adapters.

Note address is the 7 bit address excluding the read / write bit (it will be shifted left 1 bit whne added to the read/write bit)

long write_quick(int addr)

Send only the read / write bit

long read_byte(int addr)

Read a single byte from a device, without specifying a device register.

long write_byte(int addr,char val)

Send a single byte to a device

long read_byte_data(int addr,char cmd)

Read Byte Data transaction.

long write_byte_data(int addr,char cmd,char val)

Write Byte Data transaction.

long read_word_data(int addr,char cmd)

Read Word Data transaction.

long write_word_data(int addr,char cmd,int val)

Write Word Data transaction.

long process_call(int addr,char cmd,int val)

Process Call transaction.

long[] read_block_data(int addr,char cmd)

Read Block Data transaction.

write_block_data(int addr,char cmd,long vals[])

Write up to 32 bytes to a device. This fucntion adds an initial byte indicating the length of the vals array before the valls array. Use write_i2c_block_data instead!

long[] block_process_call(int addr,char cmd,long vals[])

Block Process Call transaction. I2C Access Functions

long[] read_i2c_block_data(int addr,char cmd)

Block Read transaction.

write_i2c_block_data(int addr,char cmd,long vals[])

Block Write transaction.

• Using the I2C Interface
• python-smbus documentation