dcom client from non-windows python

[Paul Rudin]

This is mostly idle speculation from a position of considerable
ignorance

In theory it should be possible to do client side dcom from
non-windows boxes. The existing python win32com stuff is only
distributed for windows. The python wrappers could be generated from
a type library on a windows box; copied across to (e.g.) a linux box
and used to do write client side dcom python programs to talk to a
servers running on a windows box. I wonder how much of the current
dcom client code depends on the presence of windows? Does this sound
like a big job getting this kind of thing to work? Or should it be
fairly easy to modify the existing com client stuff for this purpose?
Maybe somebody has already done this (although I could find anything
with a quick google)?


(I thought I'd already posted something similar this, but various
newsservers disagree so I post again. Apologies if it turns out to be
a repeat.)

 

[Paul Rudin]

> My guess is you would be more successful using pyro for the
> distributed stuff.

Ya, but that doesn't allow you to talk to, for example, excel running
on a windows box directly.

> my other guess is that python com simply wraps windows stuff,
> and that reimplementing windows on linux would take a while.

I'm not sure how much reimplementing windows is needed? There are
other non-python tools that achieve this kind of thing - see e.g.
<http://www.linar.com/> - in theory you just need to know how to drive
the dcom network protocol.

 

[Irmen de Jong]

Ya, but that doesn't allow you to talk to, for example, excel running
on a windows box directly.

True, but it's probably piece of cake to use Mark Hammond's win32all
extensions for Python on the windows box, to actually do the call,
and use Pyro for the platform-neutral communication.

This won't work if you're not able to run Python on the target
machines, of course.

I'm not sure how much reimplementing windows is needed? There are
other non-python tools that achieve this kind of thing - see e.g.
<http://www.linar.com/> - in theory you just need to know how to drive
the dcom network protocol.

Linar's J-Integra dates from august 2001, according to their page.
I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole, also given Microsoft's way
of changing things without documenting them.
Who knows what the exact specs are of the "dcom network protocol"?
(If there even is such a thing. And aren't we all going to .NET ?)

IMHO you shouldn't spend a second on trying to re-implement a closed
protocol such as DCOM. I think there are much better alternatives
out there, that are already available, open, documented, supported
and actively developed.

Just my €0.02

--Irmen de Jong