python scripts for web
 

Hello all!

Please help me start learning about this thing. Sorry for my inexperience!

Here is what I need to do: on some webpage (done in php, or any other different technology), user inputs some data, that data and the request then goes to the server where python scripts calculate something and return the result to the users end.

Now, how do I do that server part, listening to requests, and calling python scripts?

I googled about that but I do not understand if I should do that by CGI, Flask, mod_wsgi, or any other way... I know to little about that to understand what is the way to go. :/

Please could you give me some info so that i know where I should start looking for my solution.

Thanks in advance!

Re: python scripts for web
 

:

On 18 October 2012 03:18, <chip9munk@gmail.com> wrote:
> Here is what I need to do: on some webpage (done in php, or any other
> different technology), user inputs some data, that data and the
> request then goes to the server where python scripts calculate
> something and return the result to the users end.
>
> Now, how do I do that server part, listening to requests, and calling
> python scripts?

If I understand you correctly, what you're describing here is a
webserver - i.e. Apache, nginx etc. I'm not sure why you'd want to
write one of those if you're as inexperienced as you say.

> I googled about that but I do not understand if I should do that by
> CGI, Flask, mod_wsgi, or any other way... I know to little about that
> to understand what is the way to go. :/

These are all approaches to writing the software that the webserver
hands the request off to, which is a different thing. If that's what
you really meant to ask (how to write a script that processes a
request and returns a response), then plain CGI might be the best
place to start, if you're trying to get a handle on what's going on.

Once you're happy that you understand how to build a plain CGI script,
frameworks [like Flask] can be very useful ... and Flask is both
lightweight and has good documentation, so it's not a bad choice for
learning purposes.

-[]z.

Re: python scripts for web
 

To explain, I am basically doing different algorithms and would like to make them work and be accessible as I mentioned in the example... and to add them to the functionality of a specific page... so I have experience in programming, just no experience in web development etc..

On Thursday, October 18, 2012 9:57:58 AM UTC+2, Zero Piraeus wrote:
>
> If I understand you correctly, what you're describing here is a
> webserver - i.e. Apache, nginx etc. I'm not sure why you'd want to
> write one of those if you're as inexperienced as you say.
> These are all approaches to writing the software that the webserver
> hands the request off to, which is a different thing. If that's what
> you really meant to ask (how to write a script that processes a
> request and returns a response), then plain CGI might be the best
> place to start, if you're trying to get a handle on what's going on.

I understand how the lack of knowledge on my part can cause the unclarity of my question.
I will give you an example. So let us say I create two simple python scripts, one does the sum of two numbers
the other one does the multiplication. SO now I want to put these scripts on the server. Now let us say there is a web page that would like to use these scripts (do this calculation). How do I do a "program" that will listen for the requests
from the web page and call the scripts on the request?

> Once you're happy that you understand how to build a plain CGI script,
> frameworks [like Flask] can be very useful ... and Flask is both
> lightweight and has good documentation, so it's not a bad choice for
> learning purposes.

all the tutorials about flask are dealing wit creating the whole webpage inpython. I do not need to do that, I just need a service on the servers end... is flask still the way to go? Also flask does not support Python 3.x jet, would using cherryPy be a good idea?

Thank you for the answers!

Re: python scripts for web
 

To explain, I am basically doing different algorithms and would like to make them work and be accessible as I mentioned in the example... and to add them to the functionality of a specific page... so I have experience in programming, just no experience in web development etc..

On Thursday, October 18, 2012 9:57:58 AM UTC+2, Zero Piraeus wrote:
>
> If I understand you correctly, what you're describing here is a
> webserver - i.e. Apache, nginx etc. I'm not sure why you'd want to
> write one of those if you're as inexperienced as you say.
> These are all approaches to writing the software that the webserver
> hands the request off to, which is a different thing. If that's what
> you really meant to ask (how to write a script that processes a
> request and returns a response), then plain CGI might be the best
> place to start, if you're trying to get a handle on what's going on.

I understand how the lack of knowledge on my part can cause the unclarity of my question.
I will give you an example. So let us say I create two simple python scripts, one does the sum of two numbers
the other one does the multiplication. SO now I want to put these scripts on the server. Now let us say there is a web page that would like to use these scripts (do this calculation). How do I do a "program" that will listen for the requests
from the web page and call the scripts on the request?

> Once you're happy that you understand how to build a plain CGI script,
> frameworks [like Flask] can be very useful ... and Flask is both
> lightweight and has good documentation, so it's not a bad choice for
> learning purposes.

all the tutorials about flask are dealing wit creating the whole webpage inpython. I do not need to do that, I just need a service on the servers end... is flask still the way to go? Also flask does not support Python 3.x jet, would using cherryPy be a good idea?

Thank you for the answers!

Re: python scripts for web
 

:

On 18 October 2012 04:10, <chip9munk@gmail.com> wrote:
> I will give you an example. So let us say I create two simple python
> scripts, one does the sum of two numbers
> the other one does the multiplication. SO now I want to put these
> scripts on the server. Now let us say there is a web page that would
> like to use these scripts (do this calculation). How do I do a
> "program" that will listen for the requests
> from the web page and call the scripts on the request?

That is exactly what a webserver does. Is there some reason you don't
want to use e.g. Apache to handle the requests?

-[]z.

Re: python scripts for web
 

On Thursday, October 18, 2012 10:42:56 AM UTC+2, Zero Piraeus wrote:
> That is exactly what a webserver does. Is there some reason you don't
> want to use e.g. Apache to handle the requests?

no reason at all. so i guess the solution is much easier then I have anticipated.
So i guess in that case i do not need cgi or anything?

Thank you for clearing that out!

Re: python scripts for web
 

On Thursday, October 18, 2012 10:42:56 AM UTC+2, Zero Piraeus wrote:
> That is exactly what a webserver does. Is there some reason you don't
> want to use e.g. Apache to handle the requests?

no reason at all. so i guess the solution is much easier then I have anticipated.
So i guess in that case i do not need cgi or anything?

Thank you for clearing that out!

Re: python scripts for web
 

:

On 18 October 2012 05:22, <chip9munk@gmail.com> wrote:
> So i guess in that case i do not need cgi or anything?

Assuming your scripts accept the request as sent and return an
appropriate response, they are CGI scripts (unless there's some
wrinkle in the precise definition of CGI that escapes me right now).

> Thank you for clearing that out!

No bother :-)

By the way: are you using Google Groups? It's just that I'm led to
understand that it's recently started to misbehave [more than it used
to], and your replies are addressed to both
<comp.lang.python@googlegroups.com> and <python-list@python.org>,
which is redundant.

Or perhaps it always did that, and I've never noticed before ...

-[]z.

Re: python scripts for web
 

On Thu, Oct 18, 2012 at 8:22 PM, <chip9munk@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thursday, October 18, 2012 10:42:56 AM UTC+2, Zero Piraeus wrote:
>> That is exactly what a webserver does. Is there some reason you don't
>> want to use e.g. Apache to handle the requests?
>
> no reason at all. so i guess the solution is much easier then I have anticipated.
> So i guess in that case i do not need cgi or anything?
>
> Thank you for clearing that out!

CGI is a protocol between Apache and your script. What you want to do
is set up Apache to call your CGI scripts.

BTW, you don't need to send to both comp.lang.python and python-list -
they mirror each other.

ChrisA

Re: python scripts for web
 

On 10/18/2012 04:02 AM, Zero Piraeus wrote:> On 18 October 2012 05:22, <chip9munk@gmail.com> wrote:
>>[...]
> By the way: are you using Google Groups? It's just that I'm led to
> understand that it's recently started to misbehave [more than it used
> to], and your replies are addressed to both
> <comp.lang.python@googlegroups.com> and <python-list@python.org>,
> which is redundant.

When you post from Google Groups you will sometimes
see a checkbox above the edit window that is a cc to
the python mailing list (<python-list@python.org>)
which is checked by default.

If you uncheck that, you'll stop the double posting.