Dynamic HTML from Python Script

Wed Jun 11 10:00:02 EDT 2008

On Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:05:45 +0000, asdf wrote:

>> Well, there's a few ways you could approach it.
>> 
>> You could create a cgi program from your script - this is probably the
>> solution you're looking for.
>> 
>> 
> Output from the script does come up very often. There is a new output
> every 10 secs and it's possible that the script might be run
> indefinitely. Basically I want all that output displayed in a web
> browser

Here's a simplified Django and AJAX solution:

1. Install Django http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/install/
   and choose the place to strore your Django apps

2. Run 'python django-admin.py startproject YOURPROJECTNAME'

3. Create views.py file inside YOURPROJECTNAME directory
   with something like this:

from datetime import datetime
from django.http import HttpResponse
# import your script here

def myscript(request):
    output = """\
<html>
<body>

<script type="text/javascript">
function ajaxFunction()
{
var xmlHttp;
try
  {
  // Firefox, Opera 8.0+, Safari
  xmlHttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
  }
catch (e)
  {
  // Internet Explorer
  try
    {
    xmlHttp=new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
    }
  catch (e)
    {
    try
      {
      xmlHttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
      }
    catch (e)
      {
      alert("Your browser does not support AJAX!");
      return false;
      }
    }
  }
  xmlHttp.onreadystatechange=function()
    {
    if(xmlHttp.readyState==4)
      {
      document.getElementById("hello").innerHTML=xmlHttp.responseText;
      setTimeout('ajaxFunction();', 1000);
      }
    }
  xmlHttp.open("GET", "../ajax/", true);
  xmlHttp.send(null);
  }
window.onload = ajaxFunction;
</script>

<div id="hello"></div>
</body>
</html>"""
    return HttpResponse(output)

def ajax(request):
    output = """
    <p>Hello World from Django and AJAX</p>
    <p>Current time is: %s</p>
    """ % str(datetime.now())[11:19]
    return HttpResponse(output, mimetype="text/plain")

Note, that refresh time is in 'setTimeout('ajaxFunction();', 1000);' in 
this example it is 1 second.

3. edit urls.py inside YOURPROJECTNAME directory to something like this:
from django.conf.urls.defaults import *

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    (r'^myscript/$', 'YOURPROJECTNAME.views.myscript'),
    (r'^ajax/$', 'YOURPROJECTNAME.views.ajax'),
)

4. run 'python manage.py runserver' inside YOURPROJECTNAME directory

5. point your browser to 'http://127.0.0.1:8000/myscript/' and you'll see 
the result.

6. Deploy your app to Apache web server
   http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/modpython/
   http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/fastcgi/

Hope this Django/AJAX introduction is helpfull
Please note that this code is extremely simplified you probably need to 
learn more about Django and AJAX/Javascript by yourself

Ivan