The BaseHTTPServer Module

This is a basic framework for HTTP servers, built on top of the SocketServer framework.

Example 7-36 generates a random message each time you reload the page. The path variable contains the current URL, which you can use to generate different contents for different URLs (as it stands, the script returns an error page for anything but the root path).

Example 7-36. Using the BaseHTTPServer Module

File: basehttpserver-example-1.py

import BaseHTTPServer
import cgi, random, sys

MESSAGES = [
    "That's as maybe, it's still a frog.",
    "Albatross! Albatross! Albatross!",
    "It's Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.",
    "A pink form from Reading.",
    "Hello people, and welcome to 'It's a Tree.'"
    "I simply stare at the brick and it goes to sleep.",
]

class Handler(BaseHTTPServer.BaseHTTPRequestHandler):

    def do_GET(self):
        if self.path != "/":
            self.send_error(404, "File not found")
            return
        self.send_response(200)
        self.send_header("Content-type", "text/html")
        self.end_headers()
        try:
            # redirect stdout to client
            stdout = sys.stdout
            sys.stdout = self.wfile
            self.makepage()
        finally:
            sys.stdout = stdout # restore
        
    def makepage(self):
        # generate a random message
        tagline = random.choice(MESSAGES)
        print "<html>"
        print "<body>"
        print "<p>Today's quote: "
        print "<i>%s</i>" % cgi.escape(tagline)
        print "</body>"
        print "</html>"

PORT = 8000

httpd = BaseHTTPServer.HTTPServer(("", PORT), Handler)
print "serving at port", PORT
httpd.serve_forever()

See the SimpleHTTPServer and CGIHTTPServer modules for ...

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