[IronPython] How to call IronPython Interpreter with C# code?

[Martin Maly]

You can call IronPython through the IronPython.Hosting.PythonEngine
object.
Here's a trivial example:

    using IronPython.Hosting;
    class Program {
        static void Main(string[] args) {
            PythonEngine engine = new PythonEngine();
            Console.WriteLine( engine.Evaluate("2 + 2") );
        }
    }

To get this to compile, add reference to IronPython.dll

The other interesting methods on PythonEngine are:

public void AddToPath(string dirName);		... adds path to
sys.path
public void Execute(string text);			
public object Evaluate(string expr);		
public void ExecuteFile(string fileName);		
public int RunFileInNewModule(string fileName);	


Here is another example, little more interesting, I think. The program
(running as Embed.exe) will
execute the Python statement, which in turn will load the Embed's type
information and modify the static field.

using System;
using IronPython.Hosting;

namespace Embed {
    public class Program {
        public static int Value = 0;

        static void Main(string[] args) {
            PythonEngine engine = new PythonEngine();

            engine.Execute(
                "import sys                         \n" +
                "sys.LoadAssemblyByName(\"Embed\")  \n"+
                "import Embed                       \n" +
                "Embed.Program.Value = 20           \n");

            Console.WriteLine(Value);
        }
    }
}

And the last example that goes even further and uses SetVariable method:

using System;
using IronPython.Hosting;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace Embed {
    public class Program {
        static void Main(string[] args) {
            PythonEngine engine = new PythonEngine();

            Form form = new Form();
            engine.SetVariable("form", form);

            engine.Execute(
                "import sys                                         \n"
+
                "sys.LoadAssemblyByName('System.Windows.Forms')     \n"
+
                "from System.Windows.Forms import Button            \n"
+
                "def on_exit(*args):                                \n"
+
                "    Application.Exit()                             \n"
+
                "b = Button(Text='Exit')                            \n"
+ 
                "b.Click += on_exit                                 \n"
+
                "form.Controls.Add(b)                               \n"
+
                "form.Show()
\n");

            Application.Run();
        }
    }
}

I hope this helps.

Martin

-----Original Message-----
From: users-ironpython.com-bounces at lists.ironpython.com
[mailto:users-ironpython.com-bounces at lists.ironpython.com] On Behalf Of
shhgs
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2005 4:18 PM
To: users-ironpython.com at lists.ironpython.com
Subject: [IronPython] How to call IronPython Interpreter with C# code?

Can somebody tell me how to call IronPython Interpreter with C# code, so
that I can embed Python into the .NET application.

Thank you!