I have a couple of Python 2.7 scripts I need to have them run from a webpage. I've never done this before, although I'm comfortable coding in Python and well versed in Linux, Apache, Nginx.
I see many different frameworks like the old CGI, WSGI, Django, etc.
I need some recommendations for a framework that would require not much changes on my Python code for it to run on a webpage.
It seems CGI would be fairly easy for me, but since there are many newer frameworks, I need some advices.
Thanks!
Flask is probably the most straightforward Python web framework to use. It touts itself as a micro framework, and is very, very fast to get up and running with.
If you have a relatively straightforward set of requirements, I'd highly recommend giving it a look over. You can find the "hello" world example on the project's homepage here: http://flask.pocoo.org/
Depending on your project's requirements (does it need to be highly available/resilient?), you may even be able to get by using Flask's built-in development webserver along with a process control system such as supervisord. I wouldn't recommend this for heavy or production workloads, but for something running out of production this set up would work just fine for you.
If you're looking for client side browser frameworks in Python, there are skulpt and brython.
When I was looking for a similar framework, I decided to learn leave python for a javascript framework (particularly AngularJS and Node JS) for a client side language. I personally felt that the size of community and learning resources available in those two areas were more robust, and provided greater opportunity to master the framework.
I'm investigating Google refine to speed up some of my data work -- never used it before this week, but I like a lot of what I see.
My biggest question so far is whether it's possible to call external python functions from Refine. I know you can call jython internally, but that doesn't provide access to C-based python libraries (e.g. lxml), and I have scripts elsewhere that I'd like to integrate, without lots of copy-paste or rewrite hassle.
What options are there for doing this in Refine? I'm willing to get creative -- I just want a stable, re-usable solution.
As Google Refine Wiki says:
lxml will NOT work in Jython, since lxml has C bindings for CPython (regular Python), hence will not work in Refine which is Jython / Java only, and has no CPython interpreter built-in
But you can try Google Refine Python Client Library to create projects and manipulate your data programmatically.
I'm going to mark reclosedev's answer as accepted, but there's still a litle more to the story.
The other answer to this question is that you can set up your own python-based API. For this project, I was able to set up a django app running on a local server. It only took an hour or so to build the API to my existing library.
More hassle than I'd have liked, but it fit the bill for this project without soaking up too much time.
I have a python program that I would like to present as a simple web application. The program currently uses sqlite for storage. I also need to distribute the whole thing to colleagues so having something standalone and easy to start would be ideal ( no install if possible). This web app is meant to be used locally , not by multiple users over a network.
Is there a suitable python framework that might fit my needs? I looked at Django so far but it seems a bit heavy handed for what I need.
Thanks for any suggestions.
I have never tried it myself, but you could try Bottle:
Bottle is a fast, simple and lightweight WSGI micro web-framework for
Python. It is distributed as a single file module and has no
dependencies other than the Python Standard Library.
try http://docs.python.org/library/simplehttpserver.html
As web frameworks are not part of the standard lib, you will have to install something in every case. I would propse to look at http://flask.pocoo.org/. It has a build in WSGI server.
Lots of choices for Python web frameworks! Another is web2py which is designed to work out of the box and allows, but doesn't require, through-the-web development. It is mature and has a strong community and is well-documented.
Tornado as a framework may be a lot more than what you're looking for. However it will meet the requirement of being a completely python based web server. http://tornadoweb.org
I generally just download the source, drop it in /tornado/ of my project and do includes there from the app.
I don't think that any web framework is specifically oriented for the use case you're talking about; They all assume they are running on a server and there's a browser on a remote machine that is accessing them.
A better approach is to think about the HTTP server you'll be using. It's probably preferable to use a server that's as easy to pack and ship as the rest of the python code you'll be using. Now most frameworks provide a 'development' server that's easy to invoke from the command line, but most of them are intended to be "easy for the developer" which often means they are restricted to a single thread. This is bad for deployment because single threaded servers will always feel a bit sluggish.
CherryPy stands out in contrast, by providing a full featured, embedded server that's easy to configure for many use cases, and is available by default with the rest of the framework. There are probably others, but I haven't used 'em.
I currently work with .NET exclusively and would like to have a go at python. To this end I need to set up a python development environment. I guide to this would be handy. I guess I would be doing web development so will need a web server and probably a database. I also need pointers to popular ORM's, an MVC framework, and a testing library.
One of my main criteria with all this is that I want to understand how it works, and I want it to be as isolated as possible. This is important as i am wary of polluting what is a working .NET environment with 3rd party web and database servers. I am perfectly happy using SQLite to start with if this is possible.
If I get on well with this I am also likely to want to set up automated build and ci server (On a virtual machine, probably ubuntu). Any suggestions for these would be useful.
My ultimate aim if i like python is to have similar sorts of tools that i have available with .NET and to really understand the build and deployment of it all. To start with I will settle for a simple development environment that is as isolated as possible and will be easy to remove if I don't like it. I don't want to use IronPython as I want the full experience of developing a python solution using the tools and frameworks that are generally used.
It's not that hard to set up a Python environment, and I've never had it muck up my .NET work. Basically, install Python --- I'd use 2.6 rather than 3.0, which is not yet broadly accepted --- and add it to your PATH, and you're ready to go with the language. I wouldn't recommend using a Ubuntu VM as your development environment; if you're working on Windows, you might as well develop on Windows, and I've had no significant problems doing so. I go back and forth from Windows to Linux with no trouble.
If you have an editor that you're comfortable with that has basic support for Python, I'd stick with it. If not, I've found Geany to be a nice, light, easy-to-use editor with good Python support, though I use Emacs myself because I know it; other people like SCITE, NotePad++, or any of a slew of others. I'd avoid fancy IDEs for Python, because they don't match the character of the language, and I wouldn't bother with IDLE (included with Python), because it's a royal pain to use.
Suggestions for libraries and frameworks:
Django is the standard web framework, but it's big and you have to work django's way; I prefer CherryPy, which is also actively supported, but is light, gives you great freedom, and contains a nice, solid webserver that can be replaced easily with httpd.
Django includes its own ORM, which is nice enough; there's a standalone one for Python, though, which is even nicer: SQL Alchemy
As far as a testing library goes, pyunit seems to me to be the obvious choice
Good luck, and welcome to a really fun language!
EDIT summary: I originally recommended Karrigell, but can't any more: since the 3.0 release, it's been continuously broken, and the community is not large enough to solve the problems. CherryPy is a good substitute if you like a light, simple framework that doesn't get in your way, so I've changed the above to suggest it instead.
Well, if you're thinking of setting up an Ubuntu VM anyway, you might as well make that your development environment. Then you can install Apache and MySQL or Postgres on that VM just via the standard packaging tools (apt-get install), and there's no danger of polluting your Windows environment.
You can either do the actual development on your Windows machine via your favourite IDE, using the VM as a networked drive and saving the code there, or you can just use the VM as a full desktop environment and do everything there, which is what I would recommend.
Install the pre-configured ActivePython release from activestate.
Among other features, it includes the PythonWin IDE (Windows only) which makes it easy to explore Python interactively.
The recommended reference is Dive Into Python, mentioned many times on similar SO discussions.
You should install python 2.4, python 2.5, python 2.6 and python 3.0, and add to your path the one you use more often (Add c:\Pythonxx\ and c:\Pythonxx\Scripts).
For every python 2.x, install easy_install; Download ez_setup.py and then from the cmd:
c:\Python2x\python.exe x:\path\to\ez_setup.py
c:\Python2x\Scripts\easy_install virtualenv
Then each time you start a new project create a new virtual environment to isolate the specific package you needs for your project:
mkdir <project name>
cd <project name>
c:\Python2x\Scripts\virtualenv --no-site-packages .\v
It creates a copy of python and its libraries in .v\Scripts and .\v\Lib. Every third party packages you install in that environment will be put into .\v\Lib\site-packages. The -no-site-packages don't give access to the global site package, so you can be sure all your dependencies are in .\v\Lib\site-packages.
To activate the virtual environment:
.\v\Scripts\activate
For the frameworks, there are many. Django is great and very well documented but you should probably look at Pylons first for its documentions on unicode, packaging, deployment and testing, and for its better WSGI support.
For the IDE, Python comes with IDLE which is enough for learning, however you might want to look at Eclipse+PyDev, Komodo or Wingware Python IDE. Netbean 6.5 has beta support for python that looks promising (See top 5 python IDE).
For the webserver, you don't need any; Python has its own and all web framework come with their own. You might want to install MySql or ProgreSql; it's often better to develop on the same DB you will use for production.
Also, when you have learnt Python, look at Foundations of Agile Python Development or Expert Python Programming.
Using Python on Windows
SO: Python tutorial for total beginners?
Take a look at Pylons, read about WSGI and Paste.
There's nice introductory Google tech talk about them: ReUsable Web Components with Python and Future Python Web Development.
Here's my answer to similar question:
Django vs other Python web frameworks?
NOTE: I included a lot of links to frameworks, projects and what-not, but as a new user I was limited to 1 link per answer. If someone else with enough reputation to edit wants/can edit them into this answer instead of the footnotes, I'd be grateful.
There are some Python IDE's such as Wing IDE[1], I believe some people use Eclipse[2] with a python plugin[3] as well. A lot of people in the #python channel of FreeNode seem to prefer vim, emacs, nano and similar text editors in favor of IDE's. My personal preffered editor is Vim, but if you've mostly done .NET development on windows, presumably with the usual Visual X IDE's, vim and emacs will probably cause you culture shock and you'd be better of using an IDE.
Nearly all python web frameworks* support the WSGI standard[4], most of the large web servers have some sort of plugin to support WSGI, the others support WSGI via fast cgi or plain cgi.
The Zope[5] and Django[6] frameworks have their own ORM's, of other ORM's the two most well known appear to be SQL Alchemy[7] and SQL Object[8]. I only have experience with the former, but both support all possible sane database choices, including SQLite which is installed together with Python and hence perfectly suited to testing and experimenting without polluting your .NET environment with 3rd part web servers and database servers.
The builtin unittest[9] and pyunit[10] frameworks seem to be the preffered solutions for unit testing, but I don't have much experience with these.
bpython[11] and ipython[12] offer enhanced interactive python shells which can greatly help speed up and testing small bits of code and hence worth looking in to.
As for a list of well known and often used web frameworks, look into the following frameworks**:
Twisted[13] is a generic networking framework, which supports almost every single protocol under the sun.
Pylons[14] is light-weight framework aimed at being as flexible as possible and leaving all the choices about what ORM, templating language and what-not to you.
CherryPy[15] tries to provide an interface to expose Python objects to the web.
Django[6] attempts to be an all-in-one solution, builtin template system, ORM, admin pages and internationalization. While the previous frameworks have more DIY wiring together various frameworks work involved with them.
Zope[5] is aimed to be suitable for large enterprise applications, I've heard nothing but good things about it, but consensus seems to be that for smaller you're probably better off with one of the simpler and smaller frameworks.
TurboGears[16] is the framework I know the least about, but it seems to be mostly competition for Django.
This is everything I can think of right now, I'll edit and add stuff if I can think of it. I hope this helps you some in the wonderful world of python.
* - The main exception would be Apache's mod_python, which you should avoid for exactly that reason, use mod_wsgi instead.
** - Word of warning, I have not personally used these frameworks this is just a very short impression I have gotten from talking to other people about each framework, it may be wildly inaccurate. (If anyone has any corrections, do comment and I'll try to edit and fix this answer).
(The http:// is missing since they're recognized as links otherwise)
[1] www.wingware.com/
[2] www.eclipse.org/
[3] pydev.sourceforge.net/
[4] wsgi.org/wsgi/
[5] www.zope.org/
[6] www.djangoproject.com/
[7] www.sqlalchemy.org/
[8] www.sqlobject.org/
[9] docs.python.org/library/unittest.html
[10] pyunit.sourceforge.net/pyunit.html
[11] www.bpython-interpreter.org/
[12] ipython.scipy.org/
[13] twistedmatrix.com/trac/
[14] pylonshq.com/
[15] www.cherrypy.org/
[16] turbogears.org/
Environment?
Here is the simplest solution:
Install Active Python 2.6. Its the Python itself, but comes with some extra handy useful stuff, like DiveintoPython chm.
Use Komodo Edit 5. It is among the good free editor you can use for Python.
Use IDLE. Its the best simplest short snippet editor, with syntax highlighting and auto complete unmatched by most other IDEs. It comes bundled with python.
Use Ipython. Its a shell that does syntax highlighting and auto complete, bash functions, pretty print, logging, history and many such things.
Install easy_install and/or pip for installing various 3rd party apps easily.
Coming from Visual Studio and .Net it will sound a lot different, but its an entirely different world.
For the framework, django works the best. Walk thro the tutorial and you will be impressed enough. The documentation rocks. The community, you have to see for yourself, to know how wonderful it is!!
Python has build in SQL like database and web server, so you wouldn't need to install any third party apps. Remember Python comes with batteries included.
If you've worked with Eclipse before you could give Pydev a try
Other than basic python syntax, what other key areas should I learn to get a website live?
Is there a web.config in the python world?
Which libraries handle things like authentication? or is that all done manually via session cookies and database tables?
Are there any web specific libraries?
Edit: sorry!
I am well versed in asp.net, I want to branch out and learn Python, hence this question (sorry, terrible start to this question I know).
Basic Python syntax isn't half of what you need to know.
All of the Python built-in data structures.
Object-oriented design.
What python module and packages are.
The Python libraries -- almost everything you could ever want has already been written.
To name a few things.
If you've done some web development, you probably have some background in HTTP protocol, HTML, .CSS and Javascript and SQL.
You should use a framework to handle the endless collection of mundane details, like authentication. Look at Django.
Answer replaced to correspond with the updated question.
If you're already familiar with ASP.NET, the easiest way to jump into creating a website with Python is probably to look into one of the major web frameworks. Django is very popular, working through the installation guide and the tutorial will probably get you rolling pretty well.
Really though, I'd personally suggest at least learning the language itself to a basic competency level before trying to dive right into using it inside a web framework. I think you'll be trying to force yourself to learn too much at once. In terms of just learning Python, the free book Dive Into Python is always spoken of highly.
Oh, golly.
Look, this is gonna be real hard to answer because, read as you wrote it, you're missing a lot of steps. Like, you need a web server, a design, some HTML, and so on.
Are you building from the ground up? Asking about Python makes me suspect you may be using something like Zope.
Don't forget to give IronPython a try - your .NET experience can help making sense of newly learned Python idioms.
IronPython is an implementation of the Python programming language running under .NET and Silverlight. It supports an interactive console with fully dynamic compilation. It's well integrated with the rest of the .NET Framework and makes all .NET libraries easily available to Python programmers, while maintaining compatibility with the Python language.
Of course the builtins. And become familiar with the standard library (until you start to remember what's in it, I'd suggest looking through it any time you're about to implement something... It might be there already!)
You'll want some kind of framework, I'd recommend Django or TurboGears
But you also need to learn the pythonic-way. For this, open up a Python interpreter and type:
import this