How to integrate a standalone Python script into a Rails application?

Question

I\'ve got a program that has a small file structure going on and is then ran using

python do_work.py foo bar

I want my Rails users to press

Answer 1

The answer from utapyngo is cover almost all you need to know. I'll answer this part:

incidentally, trying this in irb: %x(python) Brings up the python terminal INSIDE of irb. It will not take params for whatever reason however.

To pass parameters to your python script, simply pass it. Example:

[fotanus@thing ~]$ python a.py 
args:
['a.py']
[fotanus@thing ~]$ irb
1.8.7 :001 > %x(python a.py foo bar)
 => "args:\n['a.py', 'foo', 'bar']\n" 

This works on ruby 1.8, 1.9 and 2.0.