How to call a Python function from Node.js

Question

I have an Express Node.js application, but I also have a machine learning algorithm to use in Python. Is there a way I can call Python functions from my Node.js application

Answer 1

You could take your python, transpile it, and then call it as if it were javascript. I have done this succesfully for screeps and even got it to run in the browser a la brython.

Answer 2

Example for people who are from Python background and want to integrate their machine learning model in the Node.js application:

It uses the child_process core module:

const express = require('express')
const app = express()

app.get('/', (req, res) => {

    const { spawn } = require('child_process');
    const pyProg = spawn('python', ['./../pypy.py']);

    pyProg.stdout.on('data', function(data) {

        console.log(data.toString());
        res.write(data);
        res.end('end');
    });
})

app.listen(4000, () => console.log('Application listening on port 4000!'))

It doesn't require sys module in your Python script.

Below is a more modular way of performing the task using Promise:

const express = require('express')
const app = express()

let runPy = new Promise(function(success, nosuccess) {

    const { spawn } = require('child_process');
    const pyprog = spawn('python', ['./../pypy.py']);

    pyprog.stdout.on('data', function(data) {

        success(data);
    });

    pyprog.stderr.on('data', (data) => {

        nosuccess(data);
    });
});

app.get('/', (req, res) => {

    res.write('welcome\n');

    runPy.then(function(fromRunpy) {
        console.log(fromRunpy.toString());
        res.end(fromRunpy);
    });
})

app.listen(4000, () => console.log('Application listening on port 4000!'))

Answer 3

I'm on node 10 and child process 1.0.2. The data from python is a byte array and has to be converted. Just another quick example of making a http request in python.

node

const process = spawn("python", ["services/request.py", "https://www.google.com"])

return new Promise((resolve, reject) =>{
    process.stdout.on("data", data =>{
        resolve(data.toString()); // <------------ by default converts to utf-8
    })
    process.stderr.on("data", reject)
})

request.py

import urllib.request
import sys

def karl_morrison_is_a_pedant():   
    response = urllib.request.urlopen(sys.argv[1])
    html = response.read()
    print(html)
    sys.stdout.flush()

karl_morrison_is_a_pedant()

p.s. not a contrived example since node's http module doesn't load a few requests I need to make