Trouble passing string variable to return data from python function to be used globally anywhere in a Python script or program

Question

I am trying to take a streamed audio and convert it to text using Google text to speech. Then pass that that text as input to a conversation not on Watson. Watson then returns its answer. The latter half works great.

The issue I am having is that I can't get the script to pass the text from the recorded speech to the Watson service I created.

I don't get an error, I just get nothing. The mic is working (I tested it with another script). The program actually indicates I could understand my response (no text I assume). Here is my code

import os
import watson_developer_cloud

import speech_recognition as sr
from gtts import gTTS
import watson_developer_cloud
import time

# Set up Assistant service.
service = watson_developer_cloud.AssistantV1(
  #username = 'USERNAME', # replace with service username
  #password = 'PASSWORD', # replace with service password

  iam_api_key = 'xxxxxxxxxx', # replace with service username
  url = 'xxxxxxxxxx', # replace with service password
  version = 'xxxxxxxxxx'
)
workspace_id = 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxx' # replace with workspace ID

def getaudiodevices():
    devices = os.popen("arecord -l")
    device_string = devices.read()
    device_string = device_string.split("\n")
    for line in device_string:
        if line.find("card") != -1:
            print("hw:" + line[line.find("card") + 5] + "," + line[line.find("device") + 7])

def speak(audiostring):
    print(audiostring)
    tts = gTTS(text=audiostring, lang='en')
    tts.save('audio.mp3')
    os.system('mpg321 audio.mp3')

def recordaudio():
    # Record Audio
    r = sr.Recognizer()
    with sr.Microphone(0) as source:
        print("Say something!")
        audio = r.listen(source,phrase_time_limit=10)
    # Speech recognition ******
    data = " "
    try:
        data = r.recognize_google(audio)
        print("You said: " + data)
    except sr.UnknownValueError:
        print("Google Speech Recognition could not understand audio")
    except sr.RequestError as e:
        print("Could not request results from Google Speech Recognition service; {0}".format(e))

    return data

# Initialize with empty value to start the conversation.
user_input = ''
context = {}
current_action = ''

# Main input/output loop
while current_action != 'end_conversation':

  # Send message to Assistant service.
  response = service.message(
    workspace_id = workspace_id,
    input = {
      'text': user_input
    },
    context = context
  )

  # Print the output from dialog, if any.
  if response['output']['text']:
    print(response['output']['text'][0])
    speak(response['output']['text'][0])

  # Update the stored context with the latest received from the dialog.
  context = response['context']
  # Check for action flags sent by the dialog.
  if 'action' in response['output']:
    current_action = response['output']['action']
  # User asked what time it is, so we output the local system time.
  if current_action == 'display_time':
    print('The current time is ' + time.strftime('%I:%M:%S %p') + '.')
    speak('The current time is ' + time.strftime('%I:%M:%S %p') + '.')
  # If we're not done, prompt for next round of input.
  if current_action != 'end_conversation':
    user_input = input('>> ')

Currently I can write the speech from keyboard and it works. I want the user input to come from the text generated from the transcribes audio using Google Text to speech. I need to get the data from the recorded audio into the main part of my Python script where it is communicating with the Watson service.

Answer 1

So, the solution by @Denziloe was correct with a few more additions.

In the main I put a while loop for while the microphone is active, I then initiated user input to start the service connection. Then I put in another loop with data = recordaudio() and set the user input to data.

It now works.

Thanks everyone.