6/5/2019 20.19. SimpleHTTPServer — Simple HTTP request handler — Python 2.7.
16 documentation
20.19. SimpleHTTPServer — Simple HTTP request
handler
Note: The SimpleHTTPServer module has been merged into http.server in Python 3. The 2to3 tool
will automatically adapt imports when converting your sources to Python 3.
Warning: SimpleHTTPServer is not recommended for production. It only implements basic security
checks.
The SimpleHTTPServer module defines a single class, SimpleHTTPRequestHandler , which is interface-
compatible with BaseHTTPServer.BaseHTTPRequestHandler .
The SimpleHTTPServer module defines the following class:
class SimpleHTTPServer. SimpleHTTPRequestHandler (request, client_address, server)
This class serves files from the current directory and below, directly mapping the directory
structure to HTTP requests.
A lot of the work, such as parsing the request, is done by the base class
BaseHTTPServer.BaseHTTPRequestHandler . This class implements the do_GET() and do_HEAD()
functions.
The following are defined as class-level attributes of SimpleHTTPRequestHandler :
server_version
This will be "SimpleHTTP/" + __version__ , where __version__ is defined at the module level.
extensions_map
A dictionary mapping suffixes into MIME types. The default is signified by an empty string,
and is considered to be application/octet-stream . The mapping is used case-insensitively,
and so should contain only lower-cased keys.
The SimpleHTTPRequestHandler class 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 a 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, the directory is checked for a file named index.html
or index.htm (in that order). If found, the file’s contents are returned; otherwise a directory
https://docs.python.org/2/library/simplehttpserver.html 1/2
6/5/2019 20.19. SimpleHTTPServer — Simple HTTP request handler — Python 2.7.16 documentation
listing is generated by calling the list_directory() method. This method uses os.listdir() to
scan the directory, and returns a 404 error response if the listdir() fails.
If the request was mapped to a file, it is opened and the contents are returned. Any IOError
exception in opening the requested file is mapped to a 404 , 'File not found' error.
Otherwise, the content type is guessed by calling the guess_type() method, which in turn uses
the extensions_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 the contents of the file
are output. If the file’s MIME type starts with text/ the file is opened in text mode; otherwise
binary mode is used.
The test() function in the SimpleHTTPServer module is an example which creates a server
using the SimpleHTTPRequestHandler as the Handler.
New in version 2.5: The 'Last-Modified' header.
The SimpleHTTPServer module can be used in the following manner in order to set up a very basic web
server serving files relative to the current directory.
import SimpleHTTPServer
import SocketServer
PORT = 8000
Handler = SimpleHTTPServer.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler
httpd = SocketServer.TCPServer(("", PORT), Handler)
print "serving at port", PORT
httpd.serve_forever()
The SimpleHTTPServer module can also be invoked directly using the -m switch of the interpreter with a
port number argument. Similar to the previous example, this serves the files relative to the current
directory.
python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8000
See also:
Module BaseHTTPServer
Base class implementation for Web server and request handler.
https://docs.python.org/2/library/simplehttpserver.html 2/2
