Python compile a script within a GUI

Question

I am currently working on the final year project for my degree. I have chosen to research and develop a tool to aid the delivery of the new Computing curriculum that is coming to schools next year.

I am using a Raspberry Pi in my development, and I aim to teach extremely basic Python programming to children between the ages of 8 and 10. They are going to be able to control some hardware attached to the Pi using a simple API that I am going to create.

My question is: I would like to be able to create a GUI for the children to work in, which would allow them to write and compile scripts. This is mainly to get away from the unfamiliar interface of Linux and terminals etc, and put them in a friendly, basic interface which will pretty much just allow them to write their code and click a big red button to compile and run it to interact with the hardware. Is it possible to allow for text to be written in a GUI and then compiled when the button is pressed?

I am pretty new to Python myself so I am not as clued up as I'd like to be about the specifics of it. I know that it is possible to have the output of IDLE inside of a tkinter interface, and that it is possible to have text boxes for user input and stuff, but would it actually be possible to compile a script on button press and then run it? I have been thinking that maybe threading is the answer. Perhaps I could create a new thread to do it when the button is pressed?

My apologies if this is incredibly basic, but I am having no luck finding any answers about how I would do this. I think it's mainly because I am unsure on what exactly to ask for.

I appreciate any feedback/help, thank you very much.

Dell

Answer 1

Have your GUi write the Python code to a file, then dynamically import using the imp module. I actually do something similar :-)

import imp
hest  = imp.load_source("Name", Path)