4 Ways To Call Python Scripts From PHP

So you have a PHP project that needs to call a Python script to do some processing?

Let us walk through examples of each method – Read on!

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

EXAMPLE CODE DOWNLOAD

Source code on GitHub Gist

Just click on “download zip” or do a git clone. I have released it under the MIT license, so feel free to build on top of it or use it in your own project.

 

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METHOD 1) COMMAND LINE

1A) PYTHON

print("Hello from Python CLI.")

This is probably one of the easiest methods, create your Python script as usual – This is just a dummy script.

 

1B) PHP

<?php
$script = __DIR__ . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . "1a-cli.py";
$result = shell_exec("python $script");
echo "PHP got the result - $result";

In PHP, use shell_exec() or exec() to call the Python script.

 

 

METHOD 2) CURL

2A) PYTHON

# (A) LOAD FLASK
from flask import Flask
app = Flask(__name__)

# (B) DUMMY ENDPOINT
@app.route("/")
def hello():
  return "Hello from Python CURL."

# (C) GO!
if __name__ == "__main__":
  app.run(host = "localhost", port = "8008")

There’s no need to be confused –

• Your “regular Apache-Mysql-PHP” stack will still run at http://localhost:80.
• Python will deploy an “alternative” HTTP server at http://localhost:8008.

 

2B) PHP

<?php
$c = curl_init();
curl_setopt($c, CURLOPT_URL, "http://localhost:8008/");
curl_setopt($c, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$result = curl_exec($c);
echo "PHP got the result - $result";

From PHP, we do a CURL call to Python at http://localhost:8008.

 

 

METHOD 3) FETCH

3A) HTML JAVASCRIPT

/ (A) CALL PYTHON SCRIPT
function callPY () {
  fetch("http://localhost:8008", {
    method : "POST",
    mode : "cors"
  })
  .then(res => res.text())
  .then(res => callPHP(res))
  .catch(err => console.error(err));
}
 
// (B) CALL PHP SCRIPT
function callPHP (res) {
  // (B1) DATA FROM PYTHON
  let data = new FormData();
  data.append("data", res);

  // (B2) FETCH PHP
  fetch("http://localhost/3c-fetch.php", {
    method : "POST",
    body : data
  })
  .then(res => res.text())
  .then(res => console.log(res))
  .catch(err => console.error(err));
}
 
// (C) GO!
callPY();

This roundabout alternative involves a “third party”, HTML/Javascript – On the HTML page, we call the Python script first, then pass the result to PHP.

 

3B) PYTHON

# (A) LOAD FLASK
from flask import Flask, Response, request
app = Flask(__name__)
 
# (B) ALLOWED ORIGINS
allowed = ["http://localhost", "https://localhost"]
 
# (B) DUMMY ENDPOINT
@app.route("/", methods=["POST"])
def hello():
print(request.environ["HTTP_ORIGIN"])
  if "HTTP_ORIGIN" in request.environ and request.environ["HTTP_ORIGIN"] in allowed:
    response = Response("Hello from Python FETCH.", status=200)
    response.headers.add("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", request.environ["HTTP_ORIGIN"] )
    response.headers.add("Access-Control-Allow-Credentials", "true")
    return response
  else:
    return Response("Not Allowed", status=405)
 
# (D) GO!
if __name__ == "__main__":
app.run(host = "localhost", port = "8008")

No need to be confused, this is the same as the previous example with minor additions:

• This will still deploy a Python HTTP server at http://localhost:8008.
• We also output cross-origins (CORS) headers to support the fetch() calls… Yep, localhost and localhost:8008 are considered to be “different domains”.

 

3C) PHP

<?php
echo "PHP received - " . $_POST["data"];

Since Javascript has “already called Python”, we process whatever output from Python as usual.

 

 

METHOD 4) SOCKET

4A) PYTHON

# (A) LOAD SOCKET MODULE
import socket
 
# (B) CREATE SOCKET SERVER
s = socket.socket()
s.bind(("127.0.0.1", 8008)) # bind to 127.0.0.1:8008
s.listen(1) # allow only 1 client
print("Ready")
 
# (C) ACCEPT CONNECTION
conn, addr = s.accept() 
print("Connection from: " + str(addr))
while True:
  data = conn.recv(1024).decode()
  if data:
    print("Received: " + str(data))
  break
conn.close()

Finally, we can also set a Python endpoint using TCP.

 

4B) PHP

<?php
$socket = socket_create(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, SOL_TCP);
socket_connect($socket, "127.0.0.1", "8008");
socket_write($socket, "Hello from PHP!");
socket_close($socket);

In PHP, we connect to the Python endpoint and do the “data exchange”.

P.S. If you get “socket_create() is an invalid function”, enable the module in php.ini – extension=sockets

 

 

 

PASSING PARAMETERS

• Yes, Python does accept command-line arguments.
  • import sys
  • print(sys.argv)
• In CURL/fetch, we can do POST/GET as usual.
• In sockets, we are pretty much sending/receiving data between 2 servers.

 

WHICH IS THE BEST METHOD?

It depends.

• If you just want something simple, the command line will do.
• If you have multiple Python scripts, it is better to set up many endpoints.
• If you are dealing with huge amounts of data, socket will be better.

 

LINKS & REFERENCES

• shell_exec and exec – PHP
• Python Flask
• CURL – PHP
• Fetch API – MDN
• POST Form Data with Fetch – Code Boxx
• Socket – Python | PHP