Can C# execution of Python script be done faster by re-using process?

Question

I'm executing a Python script from my C# console application. I made a bare solution which executes a script and solely prints a string to the output.

The Python initialization seems to take some time (about .5 second) which is quite annoying if i would like to run this code in some iterating code.

Is it possible to somehow re-use the created process so Python doesn't need to re-initialize? (p.s. IronPython is not an option due to missing libraries)

I'm using the following code to execute the script (this code runs in a for loop, 25 iterations takes about 10 seconds to run in total...):

        string cmd = @"Python/test.py";
        string args = "";
        ProcessStartInfo start = new ProcessStartInfo();
        start.FileName = @"C:\ex\programs\Python27\python.exe";
        start.Arguments = string.Format("{0} {1}", cmd, args);
        start.UseShellExecute = false;
        start.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
        using (Process process = Process.Start(start))
        {
            using (StreamReader reader = process.StandardOutput)
            {
                string result = reader.ReadToEnd();
                Console.Write(result); //output works
            }
        }

Answer 1

It is possible to create a restful service in python, that receives a command or a script as a string, and executes it (using exec).

This solution actually creates a remote python shell, which is much faster than creating a new process for every command.

This can also help you enable a stateful execution. In other words, any side effects your command causes, such as variable declaration, imports etc', will remain when you request more command executions from the server.