Python-pcsclite is an alternative Python wrapper to the C pcsclite library. You can find the one scantioned by the authors of the C library, at http://pyscard.sourceforge.net/.
The obvious question is why use python-pcsclite instead of the official one. Python-pcsclite is a fairly direct implementation of C API provided by pcsclite, so direct the documentation for pcsclite applies to python-pcsclite. Pyscard on the other hand builds on pcsclite to provide it's own abstractions. I suspect the choice is more a matter of taste, and being an old C programmer I prefer the directness of the C API, which python-pcsclite emulates.
Python-pcsclite also comes with the tool a tool called
usimtool.py I used to develop a [U]SIM application that
program SIM's for mobile phones. If you have a smartcard reader
pcsclite supports (and it supports most of them), you can use its
command line interface to dump all the data on a mobile phone SIM,
and reprogram the bits that are writable.
There is a change log, documentation for the Python API, the usimtool program and examples. After reading that, if you have further questions read the pcsclite documentation.
Python-pcsclite is copyright © 2007,2014,2015,2016,2018,2020,2021 Russell Stuart. It is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License.
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
The copyright holders grant you an additional permission under Section 7 of the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3, exempting you from the requirement in Section 6 of the GNU General Public License, version 3, to accompany Corresponding Source with Installation Information for the Program or any work based on the Program. You are still required to comply with all other Section 6 requirements to provide Corresponding Source.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Affero General Public License for more details.
Development for python-pcsclite is hosted on Source forge:
Russell Stuart, 2014-May-30.