Section 18.8. Python Server Pages
18.8. Python Server PagesPython Server Pages (PSP) is a server-side templating technology that embeds Python code inside HTML. PSP is a Python-based answer to other server-side embedded scripting approaches. The PSP scripting engine works much like Microsoft's ASP (described earlier) and Sun's Java Server Pages (JSP) specification. At the risk of pushing the acronym tolerance envelope, PSP has also been compared to PHP, a server-side scripting language embedded in HTML. All of these systems, including PSP, embed scripts within HTML and run them on the server to generate portions of the response stream sent back to the browser on the client. Scripts interact with an exposed object model API to get their work done, which gives access to input and output components. PSP is portable to a wide variety of platforms (ASP applications run on Microsoft platforms). PSP uses Python as its scripting languageby all accounts, this is a vastly more appropriate choice for scripting web sites than the Java language used in JSP. Since Python code is embedded under PSP, scripts have access to the large number of Python tools and add-ons from within PSP. We can't cover PSP in detail here; but for a quick look, Example 18-20 illustrates the structure of PSP. Example 18-20. PP3E\Internet\Other\PSP\hello.psp
A page like this would be installed on a PSP-aware server machine and referenced by a URL from a browser. PSP uses $[ and ]$ delimiters to enclose Python code embedded in HTML; anything outside these pairs is simply sent to the client browser, and code within these markers is executed. The first code block here is a Python comment (note the # character); the second is an include statement that simply inserts another PSP file's contents. The third piece of embedded code is more useful. As in Active Scripting technologies, Python code embedded in HTML uses an exposed object API to interact with the execution contextin this case, the Response object is used to write output to the client's browser (much like a print in a CGI script), and Request is used to access HTTP headers for the request. The Request object also has a params dictionary containing GET and POST input parameters, as well as a cookies dictionary holding cookie information stored on the client by a PSP application. Notice that the previous example could just as easily have been implemented with a Python CGI script using a Python print statement, but PSP's full benefit becomes clearer in large pages that embed and execute much more complex Python code to produce a response. Under PSP, Python code is embedded in HTMLessentially the opposite of the CGI examples we met earlier, which embed HTML code in Python. PSP is also similar to the Zope DTML server-side templating language we met earlier; though Zope's embedded tags can do more than run Python code (they can also run acquired objects in the site tree, including other templating code objects). Zope encourages separation of HTML display and Python logic code by making the two distinct objects; in PSP, programmers can achieve similar effects by splitting complex logic off into imported modules. For more details about PSP, visit its web site, currently located at http://www.webwareforpython.org, but search http://www.python.org or Google for other links if this one changes over time. 18.8.1. PSP in Webware and mod_pythonAt the time of this writing, implementations of PSP are also now available as components of the Webware suite of tools, as well as the mod_python Apache extension, both described later in this chapter. In both, the inclusion syntax varies slightly from the original PSP implementation: these systems delimit embedded Python code using the tokens <% and %> for statement blocks to be executed, and using <%= and %> for expressions that must render as strings and whose values are inserted into the reply stream, as in Example 18-21. Example 18-21. PP3E\Internet\Other\PSP\webware.psp
To use such PSP code, create a standard HTML page that embeds the special PSP tags that your page requires. Save this file with an extension of .psp and place it in a directory that is served by Webware or mod_python. When a request is received for this page, the server will dynamically compile the code to serve requests for that page. The embedded Python code is run on the server when the page is accessed by a client, to generate parts of the reply. For more information, see PSP, Webware, and mod_python documentation. Although they are largely just variations on a theme, the various PSP implementations diverge in additional ways and are richer than we have space to cover here. |
