[Zope] Zope interfacing with C

Lee lee.reilly@ntlworld.com
Thu, 26 Apr 2001 23:35:26 +0100


Hi there,

I have a question about Zope's ability to interact with C programs. I
don't know the *exact* details yet, but hopefully they shouldn't be
(too) necessary for you to give me your opinions. Okay, a piece of
software has been developed in C to analyse experimental data - lots of
number crunching, etc. This is running on a *seperate* machine (or
possibly array or machines).

They (the developers) want a Web portal developed to interact with this
software - yup, I expect the CMF (nee PTK) could be used here. The
portal would facilitate (obviously) user accounts, data storage, etc.
and would have to facilitate a whole bunch of functions supported by the
C programs - data analysis, data visualisation, etc.

E.g. a C program is running somewhere and the user enters information
through Zope. Actually, I think the data would be held on a database
before it is processed. Okay, so data from Zope / a database is sent to
a C program, processed, and the output is returned to the user through
Zope and displayed in the browser.

Basically, I am asking how feasible it would be to use Zope to interact
with C programs - to provide input for and display its output. If its a
problem, then I expect that Zope and the C programs could be run on the
same machine. It would not be possible to re-implement the software in
Python - well, I suppose it would, but it's quite a large piece of
software that has taken a few years to develop.

I would appreciate a few different points of view. Of course, if all of
the above is possible then a simple "yes" would suffice - or two "yes's"
just to be on the safe side ;-)

Thanks very much for your thoughts,

- Best regards,

Lee

--
Lee Reilly
mailto:lee.reilly@ntlworld.com
http://www.footkick.co.uk/lee