IPC (inter process communication) between python and java

Question

Hello,

First, a little explanation of why I'm asking this question in the first place: I'm writing a python program (with a wxPython gui) that needs to call a Java AWT program from python and extract data from it. I have an in-process working solution on Windows. I also have an in-process solution on OSX so long as I run the Java app headless. Unfortunately there is no reasonable solution that I have found for running both GUIs within the same process on OSX because both AWT and WX both want the first thread and cannot share the wx message loop.

What I would like to do is to launch a Java program in a separate process from my Python program and establish a pipe or queue or something for passing data (specifically byte arrays) back and forth.

I'd greatly appreciate any suggestions, or even a nudge in the right direction as I have very little experience with IPC.

Answer 1

Use subprocess.Popen to start the Java process and establish pipes to communicate with it. For serializing and deserializing data efficiently in a language-neutral, platform-neutral, extensible way, take a look at Protocol Buffers (contributed to by Jon Skeet!).

Answer 2

Named pipes could be the answer for you. See: Create a temporary FIFO (named pipe) in Python?

Answer 3

I attempted to code a solution using pipes but it seems that they just aren't well suited to sending multiple messages back and forth with potentially large data attached. Rather, they seem ideal for opening a "worker" style program that runs, responds, and dies.

Looking into socket programming, I found a fantastic resource here: http://www.prasannatech.net/2008/07/socket-programming-tutorial.html

The tutorial presents TCP and UDP variants of a simple chat program written in 4 languages. I ended up using and modifying the TCP Java client and Python server.