On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Hans-Martin Adorf wrote:
thanks for the rapid response. In the mean time I found a SOAPpy package
that would allow accessing SOAP-based Web services from Python. I also
need to understand how to access ordinary HTTP/GET services, but that
should not be too hard either.
So in order to proceed we need to install IRAF on one of our Linux
machines, and then put pyraf on top. Do they have to be on the same
machine, or could I run Python/PyRAF on one machine, and have IRAF
execute on another?
Pyraf needs to be installed on the same machine as IRAF, since it runs
IRAF tasks the same way as the IRAF CL does -- they are subprocesses
connected to the control process via pipes. It would be possible to
have Python running on some different machine (e.g. a Windows machine,
where IRAF won't run) and have it running pyraf/iraf tasks remotely on
some other machine, but you would have to set up the mechanics for that
yourself (it is not built into pyraf.)
Actually it would be an interesting little project to try to break this
close coupling so that pyraf could run IRAF processes on multiple
machines. I'm not very familiar with the available mechanisms (RPCs?
Or some other approach?) but I'm guessing it would not be too hard to
get this to work. I'm copying Perry on this message in case he is
interested. But you would still need some sort of minimal IRAF
environment on the machine where pyraf resides because pyraf reads IRAF
scripts during its startup process. (Breaking the close coupling
between pyraf and IRAF is on our list of things to do one of these
days.)
Rick
