[Tutor] (mod_python v. Python) and Apache

[Magnus Lyckå]

At 22:01 2003-06-12 -0400, Timothy M. Brauch wrote:
>And all is right in the world.  Then, script.py will run and output much
>like if I had done []$ python script.py, which is what I am much more
>accustomed to in Python programming.

What's a []$ script? I know what a CGI script is...

>First, is it possible from command line to call a function in a python
>script.  Clearly []$ python script.py/func1() doesn't work.  Nor does
>anything else I've tried.  I guess I could use sys.argv and an eval of some
>sort.  But that doesn't seem right.

You can allways provide the function name as a command line argument,
or rather as a parameter in GET or POST. Then you can have something
like that:

command = <the parameter string that you got as input>

def x():
    ...

def y():
    ...

if command in ['x', 'y']:
     globals()[command]
else:
     error_handling()

>If not, why should I use mod_python?

The main reason I see for using mod_python is to improve performance.
With CGI scripts, the python interpreter and all the modules you import
are loaded from disk each time you call a script. With mod_python it's
staying in memory between calls. For Python CGI scripts, this startup
time is very often the main issue limiting performance.


--
Magnus Lycka (It's really Lyck&aring;), magnus@thinkware.se
Thinkware AB, Sweden, www.thinkware.se
I code Python ~ The Agile Programming Language