Download
1 / 18
320 likes | 1.02k Views
Python. Web Applications A KISS Introduction. Web Applications with Python. Fetching, parsing, text processing Database client – mySQL, etc., for building dynamic information on-the-fly Python CGI web pages – or even web servers!. Fetching Pages. Use urllib or urllib2 library
E N D
Python Web Applications A KISS Introduction
Web Applications with Python • Fetching, parsing, text processing • Database client – mySQL, etc., for building dynamic information on-the-fly • Python CGI web pages – or even web servers!
Fetching Pages • Use urllib or urllib2 library • Python is used frequently to parse data pages – regular expressions are very important • Nothing new here >>> from urllib2 import * >>> file = urlopen("http://www.mizzao.tk/~mao") >>> file.read() '<html>\n<head>\n<title>A Simple Page</title>\n</head>\n<body>\nNothing to see...\n</body>\n</html>‘ >>> file.read.split(‘\n’) (all the lines at once) >>> file.readline() (one line at a time)
Parsing Data • Say there is a webpage you want to pull certain information from every day…use Python! • You already know how to parse webpages though – and that isn’t really a web application • Lots of complex parsers that are beyond the scope of this demo • On to the interesting stuff!
Databases • A database is a program that manages a set of data (gee, who would have guessed) • Most databases are relational SQL databases • SQL – Structured Query Language, a standardized syntax for telling a database what to do – although Microsoft’s SQL is different from everyone else’s
Databases • mySQL is the most widely used open-source database – Python supports it! • Uses library MySQLdb – a mySQL API for Python • Must install this yourself – on Linux with a package manager or by tarball, on Windows with an archive
How SQL Databases Work • Databases take some sort of connection as communication – usually through TCP/IP • Most databases are set up as a group of schemas, each containing a set of tables • Each table contains a set of columns, each with a different data type • Rows are the entries in a table
MySQL Queries • The library is called _mysql, and it implements the standard Python Database API Specification • Almost all database modules for python implement the API, which defines the set of functions • connect() takes parameters to establish a connection, and select_db() chooses the schema to work with >>> from _mysql import * >>> db = connect(host="localhost",user="mao",passwd="") >>> db.select_db("test")
Some Simple Database Examples >>> db.query("CREATE TABLE students (id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY, lname TEXT, fname TEXT)") >>> db.query("INSERT INTO students (lname, fname) VALUES ('Mao', 'Andrew')") >>> db.query("INSERT INTO students (lname, fname) VALUES ('Walker', 'James')") >>> db.query("INSERT INTO students (lname, fname) VALUES ('Cohen', 'Ian')") >>> db.query("SELECT * FROM students") >>> people = db.store_result() >>> people.fetch_row() (('1', 'Mao', 'Andrew'),) >>> people.fetch_row() (('2', 'Walker', 'James'),) >>> people.fetch_row() (('3', 'Cohen', 'Ian'),) >>> people.fetch_row() () >>> db.close()
What Do We Do Now? • So we have access to a database and we can get data from it – but how do we get that across the web? • Answer – CGI! • CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface – Allows any script (perl, bash, python) to output to HTTP. • It’s how you submit your CSE 121 homework
Using Python through CGI • First, you must set up the web server to use handle Python scripts with CGI • With Apache, this is easy – 2 lines in httpd.conf AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .py … <Directory /> Options ExecCGI </Directory>
A Web Python Hello World! • When we run a Python program as a CGI script, the output goes out directly and the file must be executable (+x). • The first line we have to print are the HTTP headers – this tells the browser to read it as either text, or render it as HTML. • Any line after that comprises the actual HTML or text itself #!/usr/bin/python # Required header that tells the browser how to render the text. print "Content-Type: text/plain\n\n" # Print a simple message to the display window. print "Hello, World!\n"
Lo and Behold… • Notice that the first line went through as HTTP headers.
Tying It All Together… • We want to be able to receive some input to our python program, and then output something based on that input. • The python cgi library can find all the HTTP POST and GET variables. • We can then use these to query the database, etc.
A Final Simple Program #!/usr/bin/python import cgi,_mysql,cgitb; cgitb.enable() search = cgi.FieldStorage() # returns a dictionary print "Content-Type: text/plain\n\n" if not (search.has_key("fname") and search.has_key("lname")): print "Need a first and last name!" exit fname,lname = search["fname"].value,search["lname"].value conn = _mysql.connect(host="localhost",user="mao") conn.select_db("test") conn.query("SELECT * FROM students WHERE lname = '"+lname+"' AND fname = '"+fname+"'") people = conn.store_result() row = people.fetch_row() if row == (): print fname,lname,"is not a student.\n" else: print fname,lname,"is a student.\n" conn.close() • cgitb is a library that dumps errors to the output – you don’t have to go searching for it in your log file. • cgi.FieldStorage() is a pseudo-dictionary containing all the POST and GET variables and their values.
HTML Form Interface <html> <head> <title>Student Search</title> </head> <body> <form action = "cgi-bin/search.py" method = 'GET'> First Name:<input type = 'text' name = 'fname'> <br> Last Name:<input type = 'text' name = 'lname'> <br> <input type = 'submit' value = 'Find this Person'> </body> </html
