Python equivalent to php's stream_context_create - php

Question

I am following a tutorial that requires me to open a socket and send a payload with a certificate: http://blog.serverdensity.com/how-to-build-an-apple-push-notification-provider-server-tutorial/.
I am having a bit of difficulty in figuring out how to do the following with python:
// Open the connection
$apnsHost = 'gateway.sandbox.push.apple.com';
$apnsPort = 2195;
$apnsCert = 'apns-dev.pem';
$streamContext = stream_context_create();
stream_context_set_option($streamContext, 'ssl', 'local_cert', $apnsCert);
$apns = stream_socket_client('ssl://' . $apnsHost . ':' . $apnsPort, $error, $errorString, 2, STREAM_CLIENT_CONNECT, $streamContext);
// Send the payload
$apnsMessage = chr(0) . chr(0) . chr(32) . pack('H*', str_replace(' ', '', $deviceToken)) . chr(0) . chr(strlen($payload)) . $payload;
fwrite($apns, $apnsMessage);
// Close Resources
socket_close($apns);
fclose($apns);
I've used python-requests in the past. But only for simple get requests.
Can I use python-requests to rewrite the above code in python, or is there something better suited for this task?

Answer 1

Looking at the PHP documentation fo stream_context_create, and the tutorial you're following I think what you're trying to accomplish is opening a SSL secured socket connection to gatway.sandbox.push.apple.com.
I think the python module you want to look at is the ssl module. There's an example of connecting to a server from a client, probably setting the keyfile and certfile options of ssl.wrap_socket() to the certificate you created and registered to talk to the apple server.