CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phppythonipc
Simon Nuttall
Simon Nuttall

Reputation: 404

Calling a Python program from PHP

I've got a version of the A* algorithm that builds a graph of the UK road and cycle network in Python lists. It takes about 30 seconds to initialise, but once done can very quickly find the shortest route between any two vertices. The start and finish vertex ids are provided by PHP.

I'm trying to work out the best way of communicating between PHP and the Python program. I only want to do the initialisation phase when the Apache server starts, so my question is: How do I keep the python program alive and request routes from it via php? I have a GLAMP setup.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 838

Answers (4)

Jonathan Holloway
Jonathan Holloway

Reputation: 63734

You could do something as simple as a REST web server in Python using web.py:

http://webpy.org/

and then call that via PHP, should make the whole task super simple.

See this for more info:

http://johnpaulett.com/2008/09/20/getting-restful-with-webpy/

Upvotes: 0

Yann Ramin
Yann Ramin

Reputation: 33197

I would make a "backend" server from your Python application. There are many ways to call into the Python application:

This avoids any startup penalty for the Python application.

Upvotes: 0

AKX
AKX

Reputation: 169388

Easiest way that I can think of would be XMLRPC. Python makes it horribly easy to set up an XMLRPC server, and there's php_xmlrpc for bindings on the PHP side...

def calculate_path(v1, v2):
  return [v1, ..., v2]

from SimpleXMLRPCServer import SimpleXMLRPCServer
server = SimpleXMLRPCServer(('localhost', 9393))
server.register_function(calculate_path)
server.serve_forever()

and you're running and should be able to do an XMLRPC call for calculate_path on http://localhost:9393/ from your PHP app.

Upvotes: 2

rossipedia
rossipedia

Reputation: 59437

Check this question out: Calling Python in PHP

Also check out this extension: http://www.csh.rit.edu/~jon/projects/pip/

I don't know if you're hosting environment allows you to add new php extensions, but you get the idea.

Upvotes: 0

Related Questions