20.19.SimpleHTTPServer — Simple HTTP request handler¶

TheSimpleHTTPServer module defines a single class,SimpleHTTPRequestHandler, which is interface-compatible withBaseHTTPServer.BaseHTTPRequestHandler.

TheSimpleHTTPServer module defines the following class:

classSimpleHTTPServer.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler(request,client_address,server)¶

This class serves files from the current directory and below, directlymapping the directory structure to HTTP requests.

A lot of the work, such as parsing the request, is done by the base classBaseHTTPServer.BaseHTTPRequestHandler. This class implements thedo_GET() anddo_HEAD() functions.

The following are defined as class-level attributes ofSimpleHTTPRequestHandler:

server_version¶

This will be"SimpleHTTP/"+__version__, where__version__ isdefined at the module level.

extensions_map¶

A dictionary mapping suffixes into MIME types. The default issignified by an empty string, and is considered to beapplication/octet-stream. The mapping is used case-insensitively,and so should contain only lower-cased keys.

TheSimpleHTTPRequestHandler class defines the following methods:

do_HEAD()¶

This method serves the'HEAD' request type: it sends the headers itwould send for the equivalentGET request. See thedo_GET()method for a more complete explanation of the possible headers.

do_GET()¶

The request is mapped to a local file by interpreting the request as apath relative to the current working directory.

If the request was mapped to a directory, the directory is checked for afile namedindex.html orindex.htm (in that order). If found, thefile’s contents are returned; otherwise a directory listing is generatedby calling thelist_directory() method. This method usesos.listdir() to scan the directory, and returns a404 errorresponse if thelistdir() fails.

If the request was mapped to a file, it is opened and the contents arereturned. AnyIOError exception in opening the requested file ismapped to a404,'Filenotfound' error. Otherwise, the contenttype is guessed by calling theguess_type() method, which in turnuses theextensions_map variable.

A'Content-type:' header with the guessed content type is output,followed by a'Content-Length:' header with the file’s size and a'Last-Modified:' header with the file’s modification time.

Then follows a blank line signifying the end of the headers, and then thecontents of the file are output. If the file’s MIME type starts withtext/ the file is opened in text mode; otherwise binary mode is used.

Thetest() function in theSimpleHTTPServer module is anexample which creates a server using theSimpleHTTPRequestHandleras the Handler.

New in version 2.5:The'Last-Modified' header.

TheSimpleHTTPServer module can be used in the following manner in orderto set up a very basic web server serving files relative to the currentdirectory.

importSimpleHTTPServerimportSocketServerPORT=8000Handler=SimpleHTTPServer.SimpleHTTPRequestHandlerhttpd=SocketServer.TCPServer(("",PORT),Handler)print"serving at port",PORThttpd.serve_forever()

TheSimpleHTTPServer module can also be invoked directly using the-m switch of the interpreter with aportnumber argument.Similar to the previous example, this serves the files relative to thecurrent directory.

python-mSimpleHTTPServer8000