Launch an HTTP Server with a Single Line of Python Code

Python, with its built-in capabilities, offers a simple and effective way to do this. With just a single line of code, you can launch an HTTP server to serve files from your local directory. This feature can be incredibly handy for developers, educators, and anyone needing a quick and easy way to share files over a network.

Use Cases to Launch An HTTP Serve

1. Local Development: One of the most common use cases for launching a quick HTTP server is during web development. It allows developers to serve static files (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and see changes in real time.
2. Testing and Debugging: When testing web applications or debugging issues, serving files locally can help simulate a web server environment without deploying to an actual server.
3. Sharing Files: You can easily share files with others on the same network by running an HTTP server and providing the URL to your colleagues or friends.

Below are the Different methods by which you can launch the local server:

Python's http.server Module

Python's http.server module is a built-in library that provides basic HTTP server capabilities. It allows you to serve content from a directory over HTTP without needing to install any external libraries or configure complex settings.

python -m http.server

By default, this command will start an HTTP server on port 8000, serving the contents of the current directory.

Specifying a Different Port

If you need to run the server on a different port, you can specify the port number as an argument:

python -m http.server 8080

This command starts the HTTP server on port 8080. You can now access it via http://localhost:8080.

With Python Code

Here’s a detailed explanation of each part of the code:

• Imports: The necessary modules (http.server and socketserver).
• Configuration: Sets the port number to 9000 and assigns SimpleHTTPRequestHandler as the request handler.
• Server Setup: Creates a TCP server that listens on all available IP addresses ("") and the specified port (PORT), using SimpleHTTPRequestHandler to handle requests.
• Running the Server: The server starts running and will continue to run, serving files from the current directory, until it is manually stopped.

import http.server
import socketserver

PORT = 9000
Handler = http.server.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler

with socketserver.TCPServer(("", PORT), Handler) as httpd:
    print(f"Serving at port {PORT}")
    httpd.serve_forever()

Output