Revision 7 as of 2005-01-25 04:54:09

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BaseHTTPServer

You can use this to make a simple HTTP web server.

TableOfContents()

Official Documentation

Example Code

Responding with an HTML Page

   1 import time
   2 import BaseHTTPServer
   3 
   4 
   5 HOST_NAME = 'something.somewhere.net' # !!!REMEMBER TO CHANGE THIS!!!
   6 PORT_NUMBER = 80 # Maybe set this to 9000.
   7 
   8 
   9 class MyHandler(BaseHTTPServer.BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
  10     def do_HEAD(s):
  11         s.send_response(200)
  12         s.send_header("Content-type", "text/html")
  13         s.end_headers()
  14     def do_GET(s):
  15         """Respond to a GET request."""
  16         s.send_response(200)
  17         s.send_header("Content-type", "text/html")
  18         s.end_headers()
  19         s.wfile.write("<html><head><title>Title goes here.</title></head>")
  20         s.wfile.write("<body><p>This is a test.</p>")
  21         # If someone went to "http://something.somewhere.net/foo/bar/",
  22         # then s.path equals "/foo/bar/".
  23         s.wfile.write("<p>You accessed path: %s</p>" % s.path)
  24         s.wfile.write("</body></html>")
  25 
  26 if __name__ == '__main__':
  27     server_class = BaseHTTPServer.HTTPServer
  28     httpd = server_class((HOST_NAME, PORT_NUMBER), MyHandler)
  29     print time.asctime(), "Server Starts - %s:%s" % (HOST_NAME, PORT_NUMBER)
  30     try:
  31         httpd.serve_forever()
  32     except KeyboardInterrupt:
  33         pass
  34     httpd.close()
  35     print time.asctime(), "Server Stops - %s:%s" % (HOST_NAME, PORT_NUMBER)

Responding with URL Redirection

This code demonstrates simple URL redirection:

   1 """
   2 URL redirection example.
   3 """
   4 
   5 import BaseHTTPServer
   6 import time
   7 import sys
   8 
   9 
  10 HOST_NAME = 'something.somewhere.net' # !!!REMEMBER TO CHANGE THIS!!!
  11 PORT_NUMBER = 80 # Maybe set this to 9000.
  12 REDIRECTIONS = {"/slashdot/": "http://slashdot.org/",
  13                 "/freshmeat/": "http://freshmeat.net/"}
  14 LAST_RESORT = "http://google.com/"
  15 
  16 class RedirectHandler(BaseHTTPServer.BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
  17     def do_HEAD(s):
  18         s.send_response(301)
  19         s.send_header("Location", REDIRECTIONS.get(s.path, LAST_RESORT))
  20         s.end_headers()
  21     def do_GET(s):
  22         s.do_HEAD()
  23 
  24 if __name__ == '__main__':
  25     server_class = BaseHTTPServer.HTTPServer
  26     httpd = server_class((HOST_NAME, PORT_NUMBER), RedirectHandler)
  27     print time.asctime(), "Server Starts - %s:%s" % (HOST_NAME, PORT_NUMBER)
  28     try:
  29         httpd.serve_forever()
  30     except KeyboardInterrupt:
  31         pass
  32     httpd.close()
  33     print time.asctime(), "Server Stops - %s:%s" % (HOST_NAME, PORT_NUMBER)

See Also

Discussion

I'd ultimately like to see a BaseHttpServer here that can both handle XML-RPC requests (with that request handler,) and normal web requests (with a custom handler.)

Yes- I know and love TwistedPython. But I want to make something that works in a single install. -- LionKimbro DateTime(2004-05-31T01:13:16Z)

I'd also like to add code here showing how to service a POST request.

-- LionKimbro DateTime(2004-07-03T23:07:53Z)

There exist tools like CherryPy which will create a single-file Python HTTP server (based on BaseHTTPServer). This is a fair amount easier to work with than the raw BaseHTTPServer. For most cases, using a more complete framework will be preferable (see WebProgramming). -- IanBicking

I like the BaseHttpServer because it is in the default Python distributions. I encourage all work towards putting a standard web framework into the default Python distribution. I'm not picky, just as long as something is chosen. -- LionKimbro DateTime(2005-01-25T04:53:53Z)

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