/Doc/library/cgihttpserver.rst

 1:mod:`CGIHTTPServer` --- CGI-capable HTTP request handler
 2=========================================================
 3
 4.. module:: CGIHTTPServer
 5   :synopsis: This module provides a request handler for HTTP servers which can run CGI
 6              scripts.
 7.. sectionauthor:: Moshe Zadka <moshez@zadka.site.co.il>
 8
 9.. note::
10   The :mod:`CGIHTTPServer` module has been merged into :mod:`http.server` in
11   Python 3.0.  The :term:`2to3` tool will automatically adapt imports when
12   converting your sources to 3.0.
13
14
15The :mod:`CGIHTTPServer` module defines a request-handler class, interface
16compatible with :class:`BaseHTTPServer.BaseHTTPRequestHandler` and inherits
17behavior from :class:`SimpleHTTPServer.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler` but can also
18run CGI scripts.
19
20.. note::
21
22   This module can run CGI scripts on Unix and Windows systems.
23
24.. note::
25
26   CGI scripts run by the :class:`CGIHTTPRequestHandler` class cannot execute
27   redirects (HTTP code 302), because code 200 (script output follows) is sent
28   prior to execution of the CGI script.  This pre-empts the status code.
29
30The :mod:`CGIHTTPServer` module defines the following class:
31
32
33.. class:: CGIHTTPRequestHandler(request, client_address, server)
34
35   This class is used to serve either files or output of CGI scripts from  the
36   current directory and below. Note that mapping HTTP hierarchic structure to
37   local directory structure is exactly as in
38   :class:`SimpleHTTPServer.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler`.
39
40   The class will however, run the CGI script, instead of serving it as a file, if
41   it guesses it to be a CGI script. Only directory-based CGI are used --- the
42   other common server configuration is to treat special extensions as denoting CGI
43   scripts.
44
45   The :func:`do_GET` and :func:`do_HEAD` functions are modified to run CGI scripts
46   and serve the output, instead of serving files, if the request leads to
47   somewhere below the ``cgi_directories`` path.
48
49   The :class:`CGIHTTPRequestHandler` defines the following data member:
50
51
52   .. attribute:: cgi_directories
53
54      This defaults to ``['/cgi-bin', '/htbin']`` and describes directories to
55      treat as containing CGI scripts.
56
57   The :class:`CGIHTTPRequestHandler` defines the following methods:
58
59
60   .. method:: do_POST()
61
62      This method serves the ``'POST'`` request type, only allowed for CGI
63      scripts.  Error 501, "Can only POST to CGI scripts", is output when trying
64      to POST to a non-CGI url.
65
66Note that CGI scripts will be run with UID of user nobody, for security reasons.
67Problems with the CGI script will be translated to error 403.
68
69For example usage, see the implementation of the :func:`test` function.
70
71
72.. seealso::
73
74   Module :mod:`BaseHTTPServer`
75      Base class implementation for Web server and request handler.
76