python from Java

[Alan Kennedy]

[Ajay ]
 >>>can you call a Python application from a Java program?

[Alan Kennedy]
 >>Define what you mean by "call a python application".

[Ajay]
> they are on the same machine.
> basically there is an application that does some user modelling and its in
> Python. the application (bunch of .py scripts) have an interface that you
> use to access user models.

OK, so you have a cpython application which is already running on your 
PDA. Presumably this "interface" you mention is a graphical interface, 
i.e. GUI? What graphics toolkit is this GUI written with? TkInter?

> the java app will simply do some xml stuff at the end of which it will
> access the user model through the interface.

OK, so you want to process your (P3P?) xml files in java, which will 
extract data and then use that to somehow drive your cpython application?

> basically what i'd like to know is if i have
> #test.py
> def foo(blah):
>     return blah += 5

OK, doing the above would be easy, if you could run jython on your PDA. 
You would just use jython to interpret the function instead of cpython, 
and everything would live inside the same virtual machine, which would 
be nice and tidy.

However, it's very likely that your PDA has J2ME, i.e. Java 2 Micro 
Edition, in which case you won't be able to run jython, which requires 
facilities that J2ME doesn't support namely reflection. If you PDA has 
any other version of java, you could run jython.

But that wouldn't be any use to you in the case of your standalone 
cpython GUI application anyway, since it is pretty much guaranteed that 
the GUI code in your cpython code is cpython specific, and won't run on 
jython anyway.

> can i call foo from a Java class? more importantly what would i need to
> install on the machine to be able to do that. the machine in question is a
> PDA so there are some limitations on what can be installed and made to run
> on it. Python runs and so does Java.

Assuming that my assumptions about cpython GUIs and J2ME are correct, 
here are some options you might consider.

1. Somehow drive your cpython GUI by having your java program generate 
the relevant UI events, e.g. generate mouse-clicks, key-presses, etc. 
This is a common GUI testing technique. A product that does this on 
Windows is "autoit". I don't know if this will work on your windows PDA: 
if not there are probably similar products.

2. Connect your apps using something like pyro or CORBA. Pyro 
"transports function/method calls" over a socket, from a server to a 
client, and then returns the results over the same socket. If your PDA 
supported J2ME, you could use a pyro server on the cpython end, talking 
to a client on java end. But without J2ME, you can't use pyro on the 
client end. Which leaves CORBA, which should be well supported on both 
ends, but a bit more difficult to get your head around: i.e. you'll have 
a learning curve to climb to get it working. If this approach interests 
you, google "fnorb" or "omniorb python".

3. If CORBA is too complex for you, roll your own "wire protocol", 
basically your own simple protocol to communicate between cpython and 
java. Using this trategy, open some form of communication channel 
between the two programs, e.g. socket, pipe, fifo, etc, and send 
commands/messages between the two ends.

Having seen your posts here and on the Python-CE list over the last few 
days, I can see that this problem is proving complex for you. I would 
urge you to stop looking at every technology on your PDA and trying to 
figure out how to glue them together.

I think you should focus on being able to process your XML in cpython, 
i.e. try to keep all your technology in the same language and in the 
same process. You're overly complicating it otherwise.

I think the best solution for you is to use and event-based python 
parser to parse your XML. Event based-based parsing, e.g. SAX, is 
generally pretty quick, even when it is written in pure python. The 
slowness you have been experiencing (I saw 10 minutes for pxdom to parse 
your xml files?) is because you're trying to build a DOM, i.e. a 
Document Object Model. DOM's are *huge* memory hogs, requiring very 
substantial amounts of memory and cpu to build, and in most cases are 
completely unsuitable for the problem at hand.

What you should consider is building your own object model, based on the 
events generated by your SAX parser. Although this sounds hard, it is 
actually extremely easy, as this ActiveState cookbook entry shows.

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/149368

There are also multiple cpython products which will build a python 
object model from XML events: all of these should be comparatively cpu 
and memory efficient.

Objectify
http://gnosis.cx/download/gnosis/xml/objectify

Anobind
http://uche.ogbuji.net/tech/4Suite/anobind/

ElementTree
http://effbot.org/downloads/#elementtree

Try out an approach like the one above: it will greatly simplify your 
life. And it should be reasonably efficient in execution time.

If none of the above works for you, post back again.

regards,

-- 
alan kennedy
------------------------------------------------------
email alan:              http://xhaus.com/contact/alan