Python Library Reference

Next: 11.15 CGIHTTPServer Up: 11. Internet Protocols and Previous: 11.13 BaseHTTPServer

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11.14 SimpleHTTPServer -- A Do-Something Request Handler

The SimpleHTTPServer module defines a request-handler class, interface compatible with BaseHTTPServer.BaseHTTPRequestHandler which serves files only from a base directory.

The SimpleHTTPServer module defines the following class:

SimpleHTTPRequestHandler (request, client_address, server)

This class is used, to serve files from current directory and below, directly mapping the directory structure to HTTP requests.

A lot of the work is done by the base class BaseHTTPServer.BaseHTTPRequestHandler, such as parsing the request. This class implements the do_GET() and do_HEAD() functions.

The SimpleHTTPRequestHandler defines the following member variables:

server_version

This will be "SimpleHTTP/" + __version__, where __version__is defined in the module.

extensions_map

A dictionary mapping suffixes into MIME types. Default is signified by an empty string, and is considered to be text/plain. The mapping is used case-insensitively, and so should contain only lower-cased keys.

The SimpleHTTPRequestHandler defines the following methods:

do_HEAD ()

This method serves the 'HEAD' request type: it sends the headers it would send for the equivalent GET request. See the do_GET() method for more complete explanation of the possible headers.

do_GET ()

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

If the request was mapped to a directory, a 403 respond is output, followed by the explanation 'Directory listing not supported'. Any IOError exception in opening the requested file, is mapped to a 404, 'File not found' error. Otherwise, the content type is guessed using the extensions_map variable.

A 'Content-type:' with the guessed content type is output, and then a blank line, signifying end of headers, and then the contents of the file. The file is always opened in binary mode.

For example usage, see the implementation of the test() function.

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Python Library Reference

Next: 11.15 CGIHTTPServer Up: 11. Internet Protocols and Previous: 11.13 BaseHTTPServer