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Python

Python applications aren't compiled to WebAssembly. Rather, a Python interpreter (CPython) is compiled to WebAssembly and interprets your Python application as it would normally.

Minor patches have been made to both the CPython interpreter and standard library to ensure that applications are able to create POSIX style sockets. This enables Python applications to create servers and connect to databases. We intend to upstream our patches at some stage.

Preparing Python​

We provide a pre-compiled Python interpreter and patched standard library. You can download them by running

curl -fsSL https://timecraft.s3.amazonaws.com/python/main/python.wasm -o python.wasm
curl -fsSL https://timecraft.s3.amazonaws.com/python/main/python311.zip -o python311.zip

To build Python from scratch, see the instructions in the ./python dir.

Running your application with Timecraft​

Preparing dependencies​

It's recommended that you install your Python dependencies in a virtualenv:

python3 -m venv env
source ./env/bin/activate
(env) $ pip install -r /path/to/requirements.txt

Running Timecraft​

The Python interpreter needs to know where dependencies are installed and where the standard library ZIP is located.

Assuming both the interpreter (python.wasm) and standard library (python311.zip) are located in the current directory, you can pass this information to the interpreter like so:

export PYTHONHOME=env
export PYTHONPATH=python311.zip:$PYTHONHOME

You can now run your application:

timecraft run python.wasm main.py