[Catalyst] streaming output to view in real time

[Jimmy Cooksey]

Ok, I'm requesting a design sanity check :-)

What I'd like to do is have a view come up with a form, and a div for
my streaming output.

The form is used to execute an external serverside program.  Data
fields in the form are basically just command line arguments for the
program.  The form submit controller action popen's my application,
and writes the STDOUT to my database, auto-incrementing an id value
along the way.  Meanwhile I've got one of those fancy "processing
data" ajax things to indicate that the program is being executed next
to my form.

Also, meanwhile, there will be a timer based javascript function,
which runs an httprequest back into my controller, and receives the
updates to the database (which are being populated by my external
program).  It only looks for entries with id > $last_id.  If it finds
any, it adds the line(s) into the div.  This would continue as long as
the page is open, and the initial $last_id would just be passed in
when the page loads.

Sound feasible?  I'm asking this broad question, because this will be
my first catalyst project, and I'd like to get started in the right
direction.

On 4/10/07, David Morel <david.morel at amakuru.net> wrote:
>
> Le 10 avr. 07 à 17:57, Jimmy Cooksey a écrit :
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'm looking for a way to redirect STDOUT from an external application
> > directly into my website, updating in real time.
> >
> > My original plan is to do something like this:
> >
> > 1.  Controller popen's some program
> > 2.  Reads the file descriptor
> > 3.  Redirects each new line into some DIV in my view, showing each new
> > line in real time.
> >
> > This controller would be called after a form submit.
> >
> > #3 is the part I don't know how to do, or if it's even possible.  I
> > haven't seen a $c->res method that lets me update directly into a DIV,
> > which I was kind of banking on.  The "real time" part is pretty
> > imperative also.  I can't get away with waiting for the program to
> > execute, then dumping all of it's output at once.
> >
> > Any general guidance is greatly appreciated.
>
> You want ajax here. I designed stuff maintaining an HTTP connexion
> open for hours, but it was not pretty.
>
> I'd run the task using POE / IPC::Run or Expect and leaving the
> server process alone. You'd then use Ajax to query the running process.
>
> David Morel
>
>
>
>
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