# 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.

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 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.