Connect pyethapp to testrpc - Is there an equivalent to `geth attach` in pyethapp?

Question

I have an instance of testrpc running:

testrpc -a 1000

when using geth, I'd do this:

geth attach rpc:http://localhost:8545

to link to it.

I have pyethapp installed and would like to do something similar - is this possible?

Looking through the code there is an rpc_client.py file that states:

""" A simple way of interacting to a ethereum node through JSON RPC commands. """

I interpret this as a means to connect to my testrpc simulated node, but I can't figure out which functions to use....

How do you connect to a testrpc simulated node using pyethapp?

Answer 1

Does it need to be pyethapp, or are you open to any library that allows you to interact with a client?

One option is to connect using web3.py, installed with pip install web3.

From the docs, edited for simplicity:

>>> from web3 import Web3, HTTPProvider
>>> web3 = Web3(HTTPProvider('http://localhost:8545'))
>>> web3.eth.blockNumber
4000000