Question

I work for a small tech start-up, and our main site is built on the CMS Drupal, which is a PHP-based CMS. However, I know some Python and would like to develop web applications to integrate with the website and allow users to interact with them.

How would I go about doing this? Does anyone have any experience or knowledge? Any particular module/script/etc that allows using Python or calling Python from PHP or Drupal?

Answer 1

There are several different ways to do integrate Drupal with external applications, but your best bet is probably installing the services module in Drupal, and make calls from your Python app over HTTP, just as you would interact with a remote server.

Some other options:

• Interact directly with Drupal’s database, rather risky as Drupal’s database structure can change significantly with module upgrades or even configuration changes.
• Place the Python app within an iframe of a Drupal page, giving you Drupal’s design, though no functional integration.
• Use JavaScript as a client-side middle-man between Drupal and Python.
• Use command line as a server-side middle-man between Drupal and Python. Drush would be useful here.