How to call a Python function from Node.js

I have an Express Node.js application, but I also have a machine learning algorithm to use in Python. Is there a way I can call Python functions from my Node.js application to make use of the power of machine learning libraries?

Easiest way I know of is to use "child_process" package which comes packaged with node.

Then you can do something like:

const spawn = require("child_process").spawn;
const pythonProcess = spawn('python',["path/to/script.py", arg1, arg2, ...]);

Then all you have to do is make sure that you import sys in your python script, and then you can access arg1 using sys.argv[1], arg2 using sys.argv[2], and so on.

To send data back to node just do the following in the python script:

print(dataToSendBack)
sys.stdout.flush()

And then node can listen for data using:

pythonProcess.stdout.on('data', (data) => {
    // Do something with the data returned from python script
});

Since this allows multiple arguments to be passed to a script using spawn, you can restructure a python script so that one of the arguments decides which function to call, and the other argument gets passed to that function, etc.

Hope this was clear. Let me know if something needs clarification.

Example for people who are from Python background and want to integrate their machine learning model in the Node.js application:

It uses the child_process core module:

const express = require('express')
const app = express()

app.get('/', (req, res) => {

    const { spawn } = require('child_process');
    const pyProg = spawn('python', ['./../pypy.py']);

    pyProg.stdout.on('data', function(data) {

        console.log(data.toString());
        res.write(data);
        res.end('end');
    });
})

app.listen(4000, () => console.log('Application listening on port 4000!'))

It doesn't require sys module in your Python script.

Below is a more modular way of performing the task using Promise:

const express = require('express')
const app = express()

let runPy = new Promise(function(success, nosuccess) {

    const { spawn } = require('child_process');
    const pyprog = spawn('python', ['./../pypy.py']);

    pyprog.stdout.on('data', function(data) {

        success(data);
    });

    pyprog.stderr.on('data', (data) => {

        nosuccess(data);
    });
});

app.get('/', (req, res) => {

    res.write('welcome\n');

    runPy.then(function(fromRunpy) {
        console.log(fromRunpy.toString());
        res.end(fromRunpy);
    });
})

app.listen(4000, () => console.log('Application listening on port 4000!'))

The python-shell module by extrabacon is a simple way to run Python scripts from Node.js with basic, but efficient inter-process communication and better error handling.

Installation:

With npm: npm install python-shell.

Or with yarn: yarn add python-shell

Running a simple Python script:

const PythonShell = require('python-shell').PythonShell;

PythonShell.run('my_script.py', null, function (err) {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log('finished');
});

Running a Python script with arguments and options:

const PythonShell = require('python-shell').PythonShell;

var options = {
  mode: 'text',
  pythonPath: 'path/to/python',
  pythonOptions: ['-u'],
  scriptPath: 'path/to/my/scripts',
  args: ['value1', 'value2', 'value3']
};

PythonShell.run('my_script.py', options, function (err, results) {
  if (err) 
    throw err;
  // Results is an array consisting of messages collected during execution
  console.log('results: %j', results);
});

For the full documentation and source code, check out https://github.com/extrabacon/python-shell

You can now use RPC libraries that support Python and Javascript such as zerorpc

From their front page:

Node.js Client

var zerorpc = require("zerorpc");

var client = new zerorpc.Client();
client.connect("tcp://127.0.0.1:4242");

client.invoke("hello", "RPC", function(error, res, more) {
    console.log(res);
});

Python Server

import zerorpc

class HelloRPC(object):
    def hello(self, name):
        return "Hello, %s" % name

s = zerorpc.Server(HelloRPC())
s.bind("tcp://0.0.0.0:4242")
s.run()

Most of previous answers call the success of the promise in the on("data"), it is not the proper way to do it because if you receive a lot of data you will only get the first part. Instead you have to do it on the end event.

const { spawn } = require('child_process');
const pythonDir = (__dirname + "/../pythonCode/"); // Path of python script folder
const python = pythonDir + "pythonEnv/bin/python"; // Path of the Python interpreter

/** remove warning that you don't care about */
function cleanWarning(error) {
    return error.replace(/Detector is not able to detect the language reliably.\n/g,"");
}

function callPython(scriptName, args) {
    return new Promise(function(success, reject) {
        const script = pythonDir + scriptName;
        const pyArgs = [script, JSON.stringify(args) ]
        const pyprog = spawn(python, pyArgs );
        let result = "";
        let resultError = "";
        pyprog.stdout.on('data', function(data) {
            result += data.toString();
        });

        pyprog.stderr.on('data', (data) => {
            resultError += cleanWarning(data.toString());
        });

        pyprog.stdout.on("end", function(){
            if(resultError == "") {
                success(JSON.parse(result));
            }else{
                console.error(`Python error, you can reproduce the error with: \n${python} ${script} ${pyArgs.join(" ")}`);
                const error = new Error(resultError);
                console.error(error);
                reject(resultError);
            }
        })
   });
}
module.exports.callPython = callPython;

Call:

const pythonCaller = require("../core/pythonCaller");
const result = await pythonCaller.callPython("preprocessorSentiment.py", {"thekeyYouwant": value});

python:

try:
    argu = json.loads(sys.argv[1])
except:
    raise Exception("error while loading argument")

Many of the examples are years out of date and involve complex setup. You can give JSPyBridge/pythonia a try (full disclosure: I'm the author). It's vanilla JS that lets you operate on foreign Python objects as if they existed in JS. In fact, it does interoperability so Python code can in return call JS through callbacks and passed functions.

numpy + matplotlib example, with the ES6 import system:

import { py, python } from 'pythonia'
const np = await python('numpy')
const plot = await python('matplotlib.pyplot')

// Fixing random state for reproducibility
await np.random.seed(19680801)
const [mu, sigma] = [100, 15]
// Inline expression evaluation for operator overloading
const x = await py`${mu} + ${sigma} * ${np.random.randn(10000)}`

// the histogram of the data
const [n, bins, patches] = await plot.hist$(x, 50, { density: true, facecolor: 'g', alpha: 0.75 })
console.log('Distribution', await n) // Always await for all Python access
await plot.show()
python.exit()

Through CommonJS (without top level await):

const { py, python } = require('pythonia')
async function main() {
  const np = await python('numpy')
  const plot = await python('matplotlib.pyplot')
  ...
  // the rest of the code
}
main().then(() => python.exit()) // If you don't call this, the process won't quit by itself.

I'm on node 10 and child process 1.0.2. The data from python is a byte array and has to be converted. Just another quick example of making a http request in python.

node

const process = spawn("python", ["services/request.py", "https://www.google.com"])

return new Promise((resolve, reject) =>{
    process.stdout.on("data", data =>{
        resolve(data.toString()); // <------------ by default converts to utf-8
    })
    process.stderr.on("data", reject)
})

request.py

import urllib.request
import sys

def karl_morrison_is_a_pedant():   
    response = urllib.request.urlopen(sys.argv[1])
    html = response.read()
    print(html)
    sys.stdout.flush()

karl_morrison_is_a_pedant()

p.s. not a contrived example since node's http module doesn't load a few requests I need to make

You could take your python, transpile it, and then call it as if it were javascript. I have done this succesfully for screeps and even got it to run in the browser a la brython.

The Boa is good for your needs, see the example which extends Python tensorflow keras.Sequential class in JavaScript.

const fs = require('fs');
const boa = require('@pipcook/boa');
const { tuple, enumerate } = boa.builtins();

const tf = boa.import('tensorflow');
const tfds = boa.import('tensorflow_datasets');

const { keras } = tf;
const { layers } = keras;

const [
  [ train_data, test_data ],
  info
] = tfds.load('imdb_reviews/subwords8k', boa.kwargs({
  split: tuple([ tfds.Split.TRAIN, tfds.Split.TEST ]),
  with_info: true,
  as_supervised: true
}));

const encoder = info.features['text'].encoder;
const padded_shapes = tuple([
  [ null ], tuple([])
]);
const train_batches = train_data.shuffle(1000)
  .padded_batch(10, boa.kwargs({ padded_shapes }));
const test_batches = test_data.shuffle(1000)
  .padded_batch(10, boa.kwargs({ padded_shapes }));

const embedding_dim = 16;
const model = keras.Sequential([
  layers.Embedding(encoder.vocab_size, embedding_dim),
  layers.GlobalAveragePooling1D(),
  layers.Dense(16, boa.kwargs({ activation: 'relu' })),
  layers.Dense(1, boa.kwargs({ activation: 'sigmoid' }))
]);

model.summary();
model.compile(boa.kwargs({
  optimizer: 'adam',
  loss: 'binary_crossentropy',
  metrics: [ 'accuracy' ]
}));

> The complete example is at: https://github.com/alibaba/pipcook/blob/master/example/boa/tf2/word-embedding.js

I used Boa in another project Pipcook, which is to address the machine learning problems for JavaScript developers, we implemented ML/DL models upon the Python ecosystem(tensorflow,keras,pytorch) by the boa library.

/*eslint-env es6*/
/*global require*/
/*global console*/
var express = require('express'); 
var app = express();

// Creates a server which runs on port 3000 and  
// can be accessed through localhost:3000
app.listen(3000, function() { 
    console.log('server running on port 3000'); 
} ) 

app.get('/name', function(req, res) {

    console.log('Running');
  
    // Use child_process.spawn method from  
    // child_process module and assign it 
    // to variable spawn 
    var spawn = require("child_process").spawn;   
    // Parameters passed in spawn - 
    // 1. type_of_script 
    // 2. list containing Path of the script 
    //    and arguments for the script  

    // E.g : http://localhost:3000/name?firstname=Levente
    var process = spawn('python',['apiTest.py', 
                        req.query.firstname]);

    // Takes stdout data from script which executed 
    // with arguments and send this data to res object
    var output = '';
    process.stdout.on('data', function(data) {
    
        console.log("Sending Info")
        res.end(data.toString('utf8'));
    });

    console.log(output);
}); 

This worked for me. Your python.exe must be added to you path variables for this code snippet. Also, make sure your python script is in your project folder.

const util = require('util');
const exec = util.promisify(require('child_process').exec);
    
function runPythonFile() {
  const { stdout, stderr } = await exec('py ./path_to_python_file -s asdf -d pqrs');
  if (stdout) { // do something }
  if (stderr) { // do something }
}

For more information visit official Nodejs child process page: https://nodejs.org/api/child_process.html#child_processexeccommand-options-callback