Get python list in PHP - php

Question

I am looking for a way to obtain a Python list and display it on my website using PHP.
I've checked out and tried many online help-requests so I was hoping someone would be able to explain to me what it is I am doing wrong.
My Python script scrapes a website and puts the result in a Python list.
What I am trying to achieve is the following:
I want to display (a part) of the list on my website.
I've tried to accomplish this with the following code:
PHP
<?php
$outputArray = [];
$returnStatus;
exec('python ./scrapeWebsite.py', $outputArray, $returnStatus);
var_dump($outputArray);
echo $returnStatus;
?>
Python:
print(newsHeadlines) -> returning a list like this: ['item 1','item 2','item 3','item 4']
However, the array comes back as array(0) { } and the $returnStatus value is 1.

Answer 1

Encoding the list with JSON and writing it to a file on the disk, and then reading the file in PHP and decoding JSON did the trick. To ensure the web-data is up-to-date I'm using exec(); to execute the python file.
If going full Python this is an option you could use.
To help others with a similar problem, this is the code I used:
Python:
myListJson = json.dumps(myList) #Encode our Python list into a JSON string
f = open("./fileName.txt", "w") #Open the file that we want to write to for write access
f.write(myListJson) #Write the JSON String to the file that we have currently open
f.close() #Close the file
PHP:
exec(python3 /path/to/file/script.py); //Will execute the python script, ensure the needed packages are installed on the **SERVER**.
$fileContents = file_get_contents("fileName.txt");
$decodedJson = json_decode($fileContents); //This will now contain your Array like any other PHP Array.
Thanks for the help!