Connect to Python and Mysql from Android - php

I am writing an assistant like Siri in Android. The app will perform natural language processing, for which I need NLTK in Python and I already developed python code for it. Now, based on the NLP processing, I also need to search in MySQL database and then send the result back to my android app.
So, what will happen is as follow:
User provides a query in android app, it needs to be transmitted to Python for NLP processing and after that I have to develop some SQL queries for searching in MYSQL, I have to send back the result in Android again.
Here, one big problem is to identify, how I will send data from Android to Python. I found the web framework of Python which is Flask and using it I can pass data through url to python. In this way, I can call the URL from android app and pass the query to the URL, which will be received by flask. This is my plan to build the connection with python. But so far Flask only give me one single ip. Is it possible to assign a domain to it so that my app can work from anywhere?
Secondly, How will send data back from Flask to android? Is there any better way for it? Should I send the SQL queries which I generate in python back to android and then process it again from there? Because connecting to MYSQL is much easier with android>php script>mysql than python>mysql, as it seems now. For python 3.5, which I am using, I am not finding any good framework which will allow me remote access to MySQL. (I tried PyMysql, Python MySQL connector has no support for python 3)
It would be great if anyone have any better idea. This implementation seems very complex to me.

Related

Python to front-end communication

I have a web application that uses jQuery (via ajax) to PHP and from there to a MySQL database.
I need to do some ML using Python and reading from the database. My problem is that I am unable to figure out how to communicate from PHP to Python and back to PHP?
For more context, this will be a food recommendation system so on the website, if the user wants recommendations they can select filters (e.g. price range). Now at the moment, this will send a request to PHP and I am trying to pass data to Python run the recommender and get back to PHP with the returned data. Or is there a better way to do this? Like communicate from jquery to Python straight away. (I have Python running the recommender by itself communicating with the database, it just needs the filters that are in jquery)
You could use something like WebSockets to communicate from your front end to the Python backend. WebSockets are basically elevated HTTP sessions which allow for bidirectional transmission.
Mozilla docs have great information on WebSocket API that's built into modern browsers.
Here
This would be if you wanted to communicate straight from the front-end to python. If you wanted to do it from the backend (php), you could establish a socket connection from php to your python program. (TCP). But this might a bit overkill.
Maybe as a simpler alternative, you could create a small Flask web application with an endpoint that can be called by your PHP application (using an HTTP client).
The Flask web app can then make use of all regular Python functionality such as the ML libraries you require and return the result to your PHP application.
Or call the service directly through an ajax request.

What's the best way to connect an Android App to MySQL?

I would like to write an Android App (with Android Studio) which uses a MySQL database.
What's the best way to implement it?
I have found on internet that I should write php files which send queries to the database. Then the php page return a JSON object which should be processed by the Android App (or something like that...).
Is this solution safe? Because I have to handle sensitive data like emails or GPS position.
Or else, are there other safe ways to let Android App connect to and retrieve information from the database?
You can call a web service which connects to your server, and a back-end program written in nodejs or PHP or Java or Python or any other programming language which has support (connectors/libraries) for MySQL database.

Importing php json file to swift

I have a website that uses MySQL database.
I'm trying to build an iOS app for it, so I wanted to use Swift to import information from the database and insert new information to it. I read that for the reading part I should use a PHP file to create a Json file, read that and extract the data. But I can't find the way to do it with swift.
Is there a way to connect iOS apps (written in Swift) to MySQL?
In the client-server architecture, the client is completely separate from the server, and they just exchange data thanks to a common "language" (in your case, certain fields encoded in JSON).
Your client is your iPhone app, written in Swift (but that's irrelevant).
You now need to build a server, which is entirely separate from the app. You don't need Swift for that. You will need a server (for example a cheap cloud VPS on Amazon EC2, Rackspace Cloud Servers, Microsoft Azure...) and you will have to create another application that runs on that server.
If it's just to pull data from a MySQL database, you can easily make that in PHP. Or you could use Node.js (which uses JavaScript: it's among the "trendiest" technologies at the moment), Ruby, Python, etc.For an example that uses PHP, you can check: https://stackoverflow.com/a/22367600/192024
To read the JSON data in your iOS app, then, you can use the builtin libraries: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/DOCUMENTATION/Foundation/Reference/NSJSONSerialization_Class/index.html (it's available in Swift too)
I don't know what your app is doing, but if you want to ignore all the things with the backend (the server) you can always consider something like Parse Core and let somebody else take care of the backend.

Does an android app follow client side/server side architechture with regards to database?

I am an android newbie who is coming from PHP background. In PHP basically what happens is that
all of the database connections happen in php code(server side) and then it later coverts in html code(client side).
From what I have seen in android for database connection, we write a service in php using mysql. And from our Android java class, we make the service call(always aysnc I think), and then when the result comes, we update the UI(kinda like Ajax architecture and gwt).
The system above makes sense to me. I read somewhere that even though using JDBC is not practical on android, it can be still be used. Let' say for example's sake, we want to make the database call through JDBC. In a normal web app, I would put it in a servelet. But in android, we don't have that. All we have is UI widgets code.
So just to the understand the architecture, could someone please explain to me where I would make the JDBC call in the code? or in broader terms does it's architecture differ from traditional client/server side?
Like Php:
A brief recap of what you used to do in PHP is as follows:
Connects to MySQL server using PHP
Query the server using PHP function
MySQL server receives, parse the query and send the results back
PHP parses the response and then you displays (or do anything with) it
PHP has built in support for MySQL library.
Now in android we have built in support for SQLite. But the difference is SQLite stores its data on the device itself not on the server.
For database operations same procedure is followed using SQLite:
Using Android(Java) activity it connects to SQLite database
A query is sent to database
SQLite engine receives, parses the query and sends the results back
Android activity receives the result and then you can do whatever you want with it
But, Here comes the issue
This is only good if you want to store the data locally, like saving a users score.
Suppose, you want to have a leader-board in a game you built. Then you can't do it this way, because data is stored locally on all devices. For this we need to have all the users data stored on one/same place.
The Solution (like~in PHP)
We will save our data on an online server and will retrieve it whenever required. We can connect to any database engine on the server but MySQL is fast as compared to others. So, we will use MySQL as our database server and connect to it using a PHP web service.
That web service will do all (mostly CREATE and READ) database operations for you. This way you can save the data in the server and retrieve it globally whenever you want.
But, how it is done? Here are the steps:
Create a web service
A collection of PHP scripts which can read and write, to and from database
For security, plug in something like OAuth to perform transactions and encrypt data being transferred (Best will be to write this type of service in a framework)
Send READ or WRITE request from Android activity to web service
Web service receives, authorize, parse the request
Web service then sends the appropriate request to MySQL server
MySQL server receive, parse the query and send the results back to web service
Web service receive, parse the response and send the results back to Android activity
Android Activity receives the data and then you can play with it :)
You might have private databases in Android itself without using JSON etc. Just like you used in PHP with MySQL.
You might find lots of tutorials about SQLLite. But, here is official documentation of Google's Android page: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/database/sqlite/package-summary.html
The short answer is you can't use JDBC in android. The reason is JDBC is too heavy for mobile.
But you can use built in SqLite support to work with your local sqlite database. It has some limitations comparing to JDBC MySql driver but it should fit your needs.
Usage of SqLite is simple:
Connect to database
Send query
Get your data
Process data
The only thing you have to remember is that you should not use SqLite in main thread. You may create your own with Thread but the simplest solution is to use AsyncThread.
If you want to make calls to remote MySql database then your way is a bit more complicated
Write server side code that will handle requests from android and send it to database(e.g. using JSON)
Send request to remote server from your android device
Receive server's answer
Process it
As in above method with SqLite you should do it in a background thread to not to block UI.
-If needed you can use a local database (using SQLite)
-Server/client side in android are similar to any other application: you need a WebService handler which is usually (best practice) an AsyncTask.
Solution: nice and easy...
Create a .php that does the job for you, parse the result as a json workflow. Use your asynctask to get and parse the result. Add data to your database if needed. You can finally display a nice UI in the onPostExecute method.

Migrating PHP web app to iOS

So I've built a web app in PHP that relies heavily on a MySQL database. Now (for user convenience purposes) I'm trying to create the exact same app, just as an iPhone app. Granted, I have no knowledge of Objective-C (just starting to learn it), I wanted to know how to go about this. I know that I'll have to use some kind of intermediary to get Objective-C to connect to the SQL database.
So essentially my questions are: If I've already created the web app as aforementioned, could I use the same DB and tables for the iOS app version as I did for the PHP web version? Also, is there anyway to migrate any code I've created in PHP to iOS (I realize that they are two completely different languages), but I'm just curious as to whether or not I'll have to build the iOS app from 'complete' scratch.
Your best bet is to write an PHP service to talk to your database.
This way you can share this API between your app or iOS app or any other type of client app.
The service will be responsible to receive request query the database and send responses in JSON format for example.
So to make things easier, you should not query the database directly from your apps, use a common web service.
You can use your MySQL database for any purpose because it is just data. The code that will show them will be different though. If you have no knowledge about Objective-C you should consider the web-app approach.
Here are a few helper links.
https://developer.apple.com/library/safari/referencelibrary/gettingstarted/gs_iphonewebapp/_index.html
http://gigaom.com/2010/02/12/how-to-create-an-iphone-web-app/

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