Amer said:I'm a complete newbie with Python, but have several years experience
with Perl in a web environment.
A question I have, if someone here is familiar with Perl, does Python
have something like Perl's 'here document'? I've just searched and read
some postings on generating HTML but they all seem to refer to various
template utilities. Is this the only way, or am I missing something? I'm
used to generating X/HTML by hand, which makes the here document in Perl
ideal for me. Also, many times a client already existing HTML code that
I can use in a script.
In trying to track down why this script would not run on my host, it has
to come to light that Python is installed, however the Apache module is
not. So, short story is - I was flogging a dead horse.
Amer said:This seems to indicate that maybe my host needs to configure Apache to
run python scripts? But I didn't need to do anything with mine.
I said:Which Apache module? You don't need any special modules (just the regular
CGI one) to use python in a CGI script.
Bryan said:Another possibility: If it works on Windows but not Unix, check
the end-of-line characters. Windows ends each line with the two
character sequence carriage-return + newline, which in Python
is "\r\n". Unix uses newline alone, "\n".
Most Unixies will choke on a #! line with a carriage return.
The Python interpreter will accept source files with either
end-of-line on either system, but of course you'll not get
that far unless the operating system respects the shebang line.
Maybe you already checked that. Hmmm...other possiblities...
Do you have shell access? Can you executing it directly from
the shell? Do you get a Python error, or some other?
Did you: chmod ugo+rx <yourscript>
Is Python in /usr/bin? What does "which python" say?
Generally, most experts seem to prefer:
#!/usr/bin/env python
You might try changing the the extension of your script from .py
to .cgi. Windows uses the .py to choose the executable, but Unix
does not care; it used the shebang line.
Bryan said:Another possibility: If it works on Windows but not Unix, check
the end-of-line characters. Windows ends each line with the two
character sequence carriage-return + newline, which in Python
is "\r\n". Unix uses newline alone, "\n".
Most Unixies will choke on a #! line with a carriage return.
The Python interpreter will accept source files with either
end-of-line on either system, but of course you'll not get
that far unless the operating system respects the shebang line.
Maybe you already checked that. Hmmm...other possiblities...
Do you have shell access? Can you executing it directly from
the shell? Do you get a Python error, or some other?
Did you: chmod ugo+rx <yourscript>
Is Python in /usr/bin? What does "which python" say?
Generally, most experts seem to prefer:
#!/usr/bin/env python
You might try changing the the extension of your script from .py
to .cgi. Windows uses the .py to choose the executable, but Unix
does not care; it used the shebang line.
Hi Amer,
Just as an aside, you might find this helpful:
http://wiki.python.org/moin/PerlPhrasebook
It has perl code with python equivalents/notes.
Amer said:I don't have shell access but I can run 'which python' from a Perl
script, and I will try the different shebang line you suggested.
I tried `which python` and `whereis python` and got 0 back as a result.
So it seems Python is not installed at all.
Bryan said:And after trying it, Amer Neely reported:
Probably right, but just to be thorough... Since you do not
have shell access, I'm guessing you are running these within
a Perl cgi script, and getting the results via a browser. Is
that right?
Yes.
Can you backtick other commands? What do you get if you run
`which perl` the same way? How about `whoami`, `whereis sh`,
and `which nosuchthingas5748614`? Can you list /, /bin and
/usr/bin?
How did you learn that this system could run your Perl
scripts? Can that source give us anything to go on here?
If Python is not installed, do you have some avenue for
requesting it?
We're down to long shots. Still, hosts that support Perl
but will not support Python are getting to be the rare.
You could try putting an ErrorLog directive in your local .htaccess file.Amer said:I just looked at my code and tried something else:
@SysCmd="which python";
system(@SysCmd);
and it came back
/usr/local/bin/python
I've asked my host to put in a request for it.
So it seems python IS installed, but not where I thought it was.
I just tried my script with the new path, but still got a 500 server
error. Can I trap errors to a file locally?
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