First CGI Program in Python

Here is a simple link, which is linked to a CGI script called hello.py. This file is kept in /var/www/cgi-bin directory and it has following content. Before running your CGI program, make sure you have change mode of file using chmod 755 hello.py UNIX command to make file executable.

Example

#!/usr/bin/python
print "Content-type:text/html\r\n\r\n"
print '</html>'
print '</head>'
print '</title>Hello Word - First CGI Program<//title>'
print '<//head>'
print '</body>'
print '</h2>Hello Word! This is my first CGI program<//h2>'
print '<//body>'
print '<//html>'

Output

If you click hello.py, then this produces the following output −

Hello Word! This is my first CGI program

This hello.py script is a simple Python script, which writes its output on STDOUT file, i.e., screen. There is one important and extra feature available which is first line to be printed Content-type:text/html\r\n\r\n. This line is sent back to the browser and it specifies the content type to be displayed on the browser screen.

By now you must have understood basic concept of CGI and you can write many complicated CGI programs using Python. This script can interact with any other external system also to exchange information such as RDBMS.

HTTP Header

The line Content-type:text/html\r\n\r\n is part of HTTP header which is sent to the browser to understand the content. All the HTTP header will be in the following form −

HTTP Field Name: Field Content

Example

Content-type: text/html\r\n\r\n

There are few other important HTTP headers, which you will use frequently in your CGI Programming.