Jim Fulton:
I assume that Perl has an embedding API. I'm guessting that it should be possible to "embed" (at least some part of) Perl in Python and make it available as a Zope extension facility.
Many moons ago (before Spam-2!) in a prior company, we embedded Perl in a C program to add scripting capability to a set of applications. This wasn't particularly onerous, even before the era of decent documentation. I don't think this would be a difficult task. The Ruby language already provides access to an embedded Perl interpreter. Thankfully, I can execute all my necessary Perl scripts (those I haven't had time/inclination to rewrite in Python) in a separate process space, where God and/or Guido intended them to be. I would be slightly concerned that people who would want to use Perl scripts in this manner might unknowingly introduce conflicts/competition for system resources. The reason for my concern is that I'm guessing that people who have requested this feature are doing so based on the notion that they have a Perl script that performs some "blackbox" function. After all, you certainly can't comprehend what the script is supposed to do simply by examining the source <0.4 wink>. I wonder, too, if the people who want to execute Perl scripts would be willing to restrict this to mean Perl "CGI" scripts. If the latter, it might be easier, safer, better, to provide a Zope CGI interface to the Perl CGI.pm module. This would have the added advantage of being implemented in Python. Jeff Bauer Rubicon, Inc.