How to call a Perl function in Python

Question

I have a few functions written in a Perl module. I have to call these functions in Python and get the output.

I have seen the link http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Python_Programming/Extending_with_Perl. I am not able to find the Perl module which they have imported in Python.

When I try to install pyperl in Linux, it is not able to find it.

I am able to run simple Perl script and get the output, but I am unable to call a function written in Perl and get the output.

Answer 1

Use popen to run the Perl interpreter and execute the desired code. When running Perl, include the -m MODULE switch to load the desired module(s) and -e EXPRESSION to execute the function you want. For example, this code runs a function in the POSIX module and obtains its (string) result:

>>> os.popen('''
... perl -mPOSIX -e "print POSIX::asctime(localtime)"
... ''').read()
'Sun Jan 19 12:14:50 2014\n'

If you need to transmit more involved data structures between Python and Perl, use an intermediate format well supported in both languages, such as JSON:

>>> import os, json
>>> json.load(os.popen('''
... perl -e '
...   use POSIX qw(localtime asctime);
...   use JSON qw(to_json);
...   my @localtime = localtime(time);
...   print to_json({localtime => \@localtime,
...                  asctime => asctime(@localtime)});
... '
... '''))
{u'localtime': [10, 32, 12, 19, 0, 114, 0, 18, 0],
 u'asctime': u'Sun Jan 19 12:32:10 2014\n'}