How do I run a Python script within a JavaScript file

Question

I am using React.JS to create a website, and I have a button that the user can press that will trigger some python file to be run. I've tried using child_process, but I get a ton of errors that I can't seem to find the answer to. Can anyone tell me where I'm going wrong?

This is my code so far:

import React from 'react'
import '../css/Home.css'


const Home = () => {

    const runPyFile = () => {
        const spawn = require('child_process');
    
        const childPython = spawn('python', ['../python/test.py']);
    
        childPython.stdout.on('data', (data) => {
            console.log(`stdout: ${data}`);
        });
    
        childPython.stderr.on('data', (data) => {
            console.log(`stderr: ${data}`);
        });
    
        childPython.on('close', (code) => {
            console.log(`child process exited with code ${code}`);
        });
    };
    

    return (

        <body className='home-body'>
        
            {/* a button that will run the python script */}
            <button onClick={runPyFile}>
                Run Python Script
            </button>

        </body>
        
    )
}

export default Home

And here is the python file I am trying to run:

print('hello world!')

When I run all of this, and click this button in the browser, I receive this error:

This isn't a python question. I'm not a javascript expert but I think you want to do const child_process = require('child_process'); and then use child_process.spawn(...). — tdelaney
– tdelaney, Commented Apr 9, 2022 at 20:17
Hopefully you've seen another option besides pyodide is that you can run python inside the HTML file with pyscript, see here, here, and here. You can try the examples they provide in your browser here, and the accompanying code for those is in the examples directory at the project github repo. — Wayne
– Wayne, Commented May 5, 2022 at 15:28

Emrah Diril · Accepted Answer · 2022-04-09 19:56:52Z

2

What you are trying to do is run a python script from within javascript running in the browser on the client side inside a separate process. I'm afraid you cannot do this because it's a security issue to try to break out of the browser sandbox and reach into the user's computer. Browsers don't allow that. You can't even open a file in the user's space outside the browser.

You are perhaps confused by the idea that if you are writing server side code, you can do things like this there, but that's only available on the server side.

All that said, there are ways to run python code in the browser. Have a look at brython and pyodide

answered Apr 9, 2022 at 19:56

Emrah Diril

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afuenzalida · Accepted Answer · 2022-04-09 19:51:52Z

0

You can't do that in client side.

answered Apr 9, 2022 at 19:51

afuenzalida

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