Dynamic HTML from Python Script

Tue Jun 10 22:57:29 EDT 2008

asdf wrote:
> On Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:20:48 +1000, Aidan wrote:
> 
>> 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
>> Well, in that case you could simply append the new output to a static
>> file every 10 seconds, or whenever there is new output.  That way, you
>> just need to refresh the static file in your browser to see updates...
>> Given what I understand of your situation, that's how I'd do it.
>>
> The problem with this is that browser would have to be refreshed manually
> every 10 seconds. Unless there is a way to set this in the script itself.

You should be able to do that with just:

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="10"/>

in the <head> section of your page (you can adjust the value of content 
from 5 to however many seconds you want between refreshes).

You could also look at adding some AJAX-yness to your page, and have it 
query your script for new output every 10 seconds, and then add that 
content to the existing page... it sounds like this behavior is what 
you're looking for, but it's slightly harder to pull off than the method 
mentioned above.

> 
>> A constantly running CGI app is probably not the best idea, given
>> timeouts and other such constraints you might run into.
>>
>>
>>>> You could have the script run periodically and create a static html
>>>> file in the webroot... this would be acceptable, maybe preferable, if
>>>> the output from your script doesn't change frequently.
>>>>
> 