[drmaa-wg] PHP binding

[Andreas Haas]

Hi Jose,

On Thu, 23 Mar 2006, Jose R Valverde wrote:

> We are working in development of web based services
> using PHP here. Our work relies mainly on using Grid
> technology as the back end (we are on EGEE), but we
> also have to develop for queueing systems.
>
> As such, DRMAA is a natural choice to build our
> applications. This leads me to the questions:
>
>     - is there any PHP binding definition?
>         After consulting the list archives I gather
> the answer is "No".
>
>     - is there anybody working on defining a DRMAA PHP
> binding?
>         Again, it seems that the answer is "No", but
> I'd like to be sure.

I believe answer is no. At least I do not know about
anyone who worked on such a binding.

>      - is there anybody else besides me interested on
> such a binding and willing to help define it?
>
> And most important of all:
>
>     - if the answers are all "No" as I expect, may I
> start working on defining and implementing such a
> binding myself?

Sure enough, there is no reason at all not to work on this.

> Here is my idea: We already have a PHP class
> implementing access to EGEE grid middleware --see
>
>     http://savannah.cern.ch/project/gridgramm/

This is broken.

> I'd like to build on top of it (or substitute it by) a
> DRMAA binding. Later on we may consider creating PHP
> bindings for other queueing systems (SGE, openPBS or
> even Condor) and Grid implementations.

Actually if you make the binding on top of shared DRMAA
C library no additional work should be required with the
PHP binding. Though I can't rule out deploying it with a
different DRM might require little tweaking, but due to
DRMAA compliance test suite being used to assure ABI
compliance there should be no major surprises.

> The binding might be functional (based on the C
> binding) or object-oriented (based on the Java or IDL
> bindings). That would be open for discussion.
>
> Besides, we usually implement everything here as a web
> service in the latest stages. It falls within our
> plans to make the binding into a web service as well
> (we already have some experience with asynchronous web
> services implementations). It seems that might be
> welcome, isn't it? But this, again, would be left for
> a later stage, once we have the basic library
> available.

I must confess I'm a foreigner in web service land. Nevertheless
asynchronous web services sounds very interesting. Is there
any material that delves into it?

Best regards,
Andreas