#16688: replace pexpect interface calls with library where possible
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Reporter: rws | Owner:
Type: enhancement | Status: new
Priority: major | Milestone: sage-wishlist
Component: interfaces | Resolution:
Keywords: expect, pexpect, library | Merged in:
Authors: | Reviewers:
Report Upstream: N/A | Work issues:
Branch: | Commit:
Dependencies: | Stopgaps:
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Comment (by was):
Replying to [comment:5 nbruin]:
> Replying to [comment:1 fbissey]:
> > The notebook also uses pexpect. I am not sure there is much of an
alternative there but at least we should try to move it to a more modern
pexpect. Trying to do so results in breakages that I have no idea how to
solve currently.
>
> There is, especially when you're programming both sides. You can have
two processes communicate through a pipe or stream without one of the
parties pretending to be a terminal.
I completely agree. IPython and also
https://github.com/sagemath/cloud/blob/master/sage_server.py are both
examples of better ways of communication between two processes without
using pexpect. Basically, you setup a traditional client/server and a
messaging protocol. Python and many other languages makes that sort of
thing pretty easy. But... it would be harder to implement something like
that in a special purpose system like Pari or Magma. It might be
impossible with Magma without source code access (not sure what the status
of networking is now).
> That said, the fact that the notebook *does* use pexpect makes it easier
to use it to interface with R, octave, magma, etc, so we do get some
benefit from it.
As the author of exactly the part of the notebook that uses pexpect, etc.,
I don't agree with this statement so much -- instead, the two are somewhat
orthogonal. The connection (1) "notebook_server <--> python processes"
is done using pexpect in sagenb. The interfaces to R/octave/magma, etc.
are connections (2) "python processes <--> R/octave/magma/etc.". You can
certainly swap out (1) for a connection built using TCP (rather than
pexpect) with no impact on (2); in fact, that's precisely what I did with
SageMathCloud.
That said, maybe you just meant that work on the abstract base class
Expect for the interfaces benefits both sagenb and the R/octave/magma,
etc., interfaces...
--
Ticket URL: <http://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/16688#comment:6>
Sage <http://www.sagemath.org>
Sage: Creating a Viable Open Source Alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica,
and MATLAB
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