What's the very simplest way to run some Python from a button on a web page?

[Tim Roberts]

tinnews at isbd.co.uk wrote:
>
>I want to run a server side python script when a button on a web page
>is clicked.  This is on a LAMP server - apache2 on xubuntu 11.10.
>
>I know I *could* run it as a CGI script but I don't want to change the
>web page at all when the button is clicked (I'll see the effect
>elsewhere on the screen anyway) so normal CGI isn't ideal.

It seems what you're after is AJAX.  If you are using a Javascript
framework like jQuery, it's easy to fire off an asynchronous request back
to your server that leaves the existing page alone.  If you aren't, then I
think the easiest method is to use an invisible <iframe>.  From Javascript,
you can set the "src" property of the <iframe> to fire off a request while
leaving the rest of the page alone.

You could spend the rest of your career reading all of the good web
material on AJAX.
-- 
Tim Roberts, timr at probo.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.