a little more help with python server-side scripting

[John Salerno]

I contacted my domain host about how Python is implemented on their
server, and got this response:

-------------------
Hello John,

Please be informed that the implementation of python in our server is
through mod_python integration with the apache.

These are the steps needed for you to be able to run .py script directly
from browser for your webpage:

1. Please use the below mentioned path for python:
#!/usr/bin/env python

Furthermore, update us with the script path, so that we can set the
appropriate ownership and permissions of the script on the server.

If you require any further assistance, feel free to contact us.
-----------------------

Unfortunately, I don't completely understand what it is I need to do
now. Where do I put the path they mentioned? And what do they mean by my
script path?

[Ben Cartwright]

John Salerno wrote:

I contacted my domain host about how Python is implemented on their
server, and got this response:

-------------------
Hello John,

Please be informed that the implementation of python in our server is
through mod_python integration with the apache.

These are the steps needed for you to be able to run .py script directly
from browser for your webpage:

1. Please use the below mentioned path for python:
#!/usr/bin/env python

Furthermore, update us with the script path, so that we can set the
appropriate ownership and permissions of the script on the server.

If you require any further assistance, feel free to contact us.
-----------------------

Unfortunately, I don't completely understand what it is I need to do
now. Where do I put the path they mentioned? And what do they mean by my
script path?

The Python tutorial should fill in the blanks
(http://www.python.org/doc/tut/node4.html): 2.2.2 Executable Python Scripts

On BSD'ish Unix systems, Python scripts can be made directly executable,
like shell scripts, by putting the line

#! /usr/bin/env python

(assuming that the interpreter is on the user's PATH) at the beginning
of the script and giving the file an executable mode. The "#!" must be
the first two characters of the file. On some platforms, this first line
must end with a Unix-style line ending ("\n"), not a Mac OS ("\r") or
Windows ("\r\n") line ending. Note that the hash, or pound, character,
"#", is used to start a comment in Python.
This answers your first question. Put the #! bit at the top of your
..py script. This way the web server will know how to run the script.
The script can be given a executable mode, or permission, using the
chmod command:

$ chmod +x myscript.py

And this answers your second. Your host needs to know the path to your
script so they can use chmod to make it executable.

--Ben

[Steve Holden]

John Salerno wrote:

I contacted my domain host about how Python is implemented on their
server, and got this response:

-------------------
Hello John,

Please be informed that the implementation of python in our server is
through mod_python integration with the apache.

These are the steps needed for you to be able to run .py script directly
from browser for your webpage:

1. Please use the below mentioned path for python:
#!/usr/bin/env python

Furthermore, update us with the script path, so that we can set the
appropriate ownership and permissions of the script on the server.

If you require any further assistance, feel free to contact us.
-----------------------

Unfortunately, I don't completely understand what it is I need to do
now. Where do I put the path they mentioned? And what do they mean by my
script path?

Don't worry, it looks as though they don't completely understand either :-)

Fortunately they've given you the information you need to run CGI
scripts. Try installing this script in your cgi-bin directory as test.py
(you may have to set it executable):

#!/usr/bin/env python
#
import os
print "Content-Type: text/plain"
print
for t in os.environ.item s():
print "%s=%s" % t

If it runs when you access http://yourdomain/cgi-bin/test.py it looks
like you're good to go!

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden [phone] [phone]
Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com
PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/

[John Salerno]

Ben Cartwright wrote:

The script can be given a executable mode, or permission, using the
chmod command:

$ chmod +x myscript.py

And this answers your second. Your host needs to know the path to your
script so they can use chmod to make it executable.

Where does this line go? Just at the top as well?

[John Salerno]

Steve Holden wrote:

Fortunately they've given you the information you need to run CGI
scripts. Try installing this script in your cgi-bin directory as test.py
(you may have to set it executable):

Thank you! I desperately needed to test it, and that seemed to work. I
didn't have to make it executable though. I wonder why?

[Steve Holden]

John Salerno wrote:

Ben Cartwright wrote:

The script can be given a executable mode, or permission, using the
chmod command:

$ chmod +x myscript.py

And this answers your second. Your host needs to know the path to your
script so they can use chmod to make it executable.

Where does this line go? Just at the top as well?

Nope. I presume you can log in to your web server using ssh or telnet or
similar. In which case you do so. Then use the commands

cd {wherever}/cgi-bin
chmod +x test.py

to make the script executable, and therefore recognised as a proper
script by Apache.

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden [phone] [phone]
Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com
PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/

[Steve Holden]

John Salerno wrote:

Steve Holden wrote:

Fortunately they've given you the information you need to run CGI
scripts. Try installing this script in your cgi-bin directory as test.py
(you may have to set it executable):

Thank you! I desperately needed to test it, and that seemed to work. I
didn't have to make it executable though. I wonder why?

Probably because the cgi-bin directory is specially marked to contain
executables. If you drop the script in another directory you will almost
certainly just see the source of the script. Making it executable
*might* cause it to run, but that would depend on exactly how your
server is configured.

Certainly my sites all have a line like

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "c:/apache/cgi-bin/"

in the httpd.conf file. ScriptAlias tells Apache that the files in the
directory are scripts. The first argument is the address in web-space,
the second the address on disk.

You'll find you can affect *some* configuration items by creating files
called .htaccess in your web content directories, but that's a ways down
the road yet.

If the script ran, you will now know waht version of Apaceh you're
running with!

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden [phone] [phone]
Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com
PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/

[John Salerno]

Steve Holden wrote:

Where does this line go? Just at the top as well?

Nope. I presume you can log in to your web server using ssh or telnet or
similar. In which case you do so. Then use the commands

cd {wherever}/cgi-bin
chmod +x test.py

to make the script executable, and therefore recognised as a proper
script by Apache.

I'm afraid I still don't understand. I guess this step isn't necessary,
since the script seemed to run anyway, but I'd like to know this anyway.
The way I log into my server space is by an FTP program, so I don't see
an occasion to actually *type* in any kind of commands.

[John Salerno]

Steve Holden wrote:

If the script ran, you will now know waht version of Apaceh you're
running with!

Well, the script did seem to run, but I'm still not sure if this is what
I'm ultimately after. This allows me to run Python script files, which
is good, but what I really want to do is write bits of Python code in my
HTML files (as a means to include headers and footers, for example). So
these bits of Python code will basically be like a PHP include()
function that calls another HTML file which contains the header/footer
HTML to insert into the calling file. This type of situation doesn't
involve calling external Python scripts.

Maybe I can just try this also and see if it works, but I don't know the
code to use to write such an include statement. What would the
equivalent of this be in Python:

<?php include('file.h tml'); ?>

Thanks.

[Steve Holden]

John Salerno wrote:

Steve Holden wrote:

If the script ran, you will now know waht version of Apaceh you're
running with!

Well, the script did seem to run, but I'm still not sure if this is what
I'm ultimately after. This allows me to run Python script files, which
is good, but what I really want to do is write bits of Python code in my
HTML files (as a means to include headers and footers, for example). So
these bits of Python code will basically be like a PHP include()
function that calls another HTML file which contains the header/footer
HTML to insert into the calling file. This type of situation doesn't
involve calling external Python scripts.

Maybe I can just try this also and see if it works, but I don't know the
code to use to write such an include statement. What would the
equivalent of this be in Python:

<?php include('file.h tml'); ?>

Thanks.

There are various ways you can do this, each of which depends on having
a particular framework in place. Since your web service provider tells
you that mod_python is available it's likely that you'll be able to use
PSP (one of several beasts known as "Python Server Pages").

This is briefly described (for a flavor of the technology) in

http://www.python.org/pycon/dc2004/papers/14/

by the author of mod_python. If you like what you see then take a look
at the full mod_python documentation, at

http://www.modpython.org/live/current/doc-html/

Note that purists might suggest this isn't the best way to use Python on
the web. If it gets you where you want to be, feel free to ignore them :-)

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden [phone] [phone]
Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com
PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/