Can VBA Talk to Python

[noe956]

Ok here is my goal that I am trying to accomplish.
First of all before I start mentioning my problem.
I am a beginner in programming have been taking classes from learnpythonthehardway.com and codeacademy.com roughly 6 months.
My goal is to be able to get a data which contains lattitude and longitude in other words x, and Y. I want to send that data to python which will open my program called Arc Gis or Arc Map version 10.0 which highly depends on python scripting for automation. When I take that value my x and y I want python to use the arcpy library to search it on the map and plotting it. Is like puting the x and y on google maps and searching.


my code for python so far I am telling it to open the arcMap.

Example code that I have so far.

import subprocess
Choose_Program = raw_input("What Program you want to open").lower()
choosen = Choose_Program
 
if choosen == 'arcmap':
    subprocess.Popen([r"C:\Program Files (x86)\ArcGIS\Desktop10.0\Bin\ArcMap.exe", r"\\911SERVER\911_dept\10_TRAINING\GIS\hector_training.mxd"])
 
else:
    print "Not Valid Program Please Choose Another Program"

[Rabbit]

Please use code tags when posting code.

You haven't mentioned how VBA fits into all of this. But as far as passing information along, I don't know if you can but you can always work around it by writing out the information to a file and then reading it in from python.

On a side note, what is the purpose of line 3? Why make a copy of the value when you can use the original value itself?

[NeoPa]

Two programs running at the same time (The language of each is almost completely irrelevant) cannot communicate directly with each other unless they have been specifically designed and coded to do so.

Inter Process Communication (You may read about IPCs when studying and this is what they are referring to.) is a whole subject in itself, and can be done using O/S provided calls. It can also be done, as Rabbit indicates, by storing and loading information from files.

Natively, though, VBA programs at least have no built-in IPC capabilities.

[noe956]

Rabbit and NeoPa.
Let me explain more. I have a microsoft access database that our employees use every day. The customer calls in and we input the information into the database. When my co-worker inputs information into a specific form there are some data I want to push out in other words extract out for it can plot on the other software called ArcMap that uses python to automated process. I want the vba to get the value of the form pass it to python and python reads the value and plots it in the Arc Map by using gps coordinates. First, of all I dont know what to write on vba to make it work to send the data over to python. I know you guys suggest to write the information into a file I don't know any solutions so that's why I am asking here for help. Lines two and three you can just disregard that coding because it was to see if it would actually work and open that file which it did.

[Rabbit]

Well, if you're invoking a command in VBA to call python to run a python script, I would not be surprised if the command also allowed you to pass parameters to the script you're calling.

But to be sure, we would first need to know how you're invoking the script. And second, you would need to read the python documentation to see if you can pass parameters on the command line and how to do so.

[NeoPa]

That may be more explanation, but I don't see that it helps any. The answers already provided are a good fit for the question posed. We don't sit here and simply do code for you. Even if we were inclined to the site rules prohibit it.

If that's what you're after, apart from not getting it here, you will need to provide more appropriate detail as to what you're working with. If you manage to find anyone willing to do that for you, on a site where that is even allowed, they won't be able to help you much unless you can provide more helpful details than are here.

Good luck.

[ADezii]

@Rabbit
Wouldn't the question be: Does Arc Map accept Command Line Arguments, and can Python read those Arguments? It could also be that I have things backwards! (LOL).

[Rabbit]

Well, it sounds to me like they have a python script that calls arc map. And they want to call that script and pass it some data from the database.