sending data to another process's input stream?

[Joe Strout]

In article <14148.28634.948802.403019 at amarok.cnri.reston.va.us>, Andrew
M. Kuchling <akuchlin at cnri.reston.va.us> wrote:

>         The most frequent solution would be to use sockets, whether
> Unix or TCP/IP. 

Ugh.  I was afraid you'd say that.  But what's the difference between
Unix and TCP/IP sockets?  I poked around the Python library reference,
and found only "sockets" (no distinction).

>  So, you could write a Python program that would be a long-lived
> server and accepted connections over a Unix or TCP/IP socket; CGIs
> would then talk to the server.  (This is how Zope works, for example.)
> Your server could then just act as a front-end for a single
> long-running instance of the C++ program, sending output to the
> program's standard input.

Hmm... but that doesn't help, does it?  Before, my question was how to
get the short-lived CGIs talking to my long-lived C++ program.  With
your suggestion, the question is how to get the long-lived Python
server to talk to the long-lived C++ program.  It's the same question,
is it not?

Put another way, how would I implement this part:

> Your server could then just act as a front-end for a single
> long-running instance of the C++ program

?  Are sockets the way to go, or is there anything easier?

Thanks again,
-- Joe

-- 
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|    Joseph J. Strout           Biocomputing -- The Salk Institute |
|    joe at strout.net             http://www.strout.net              |
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