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 

    15 The :mod:`CGIHTTPServer` module defines a request-handler class, interface

    16 compatible with :class:`BaseHTTPServer.BaseHTTPRequestHandler` and inherits

    17 behavior from :class:`SimpleHTTPServer.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler` but can also

    18 run 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 

    30 The :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 

    66 Note that CGI scripts will be run with UID of user nobody, for security reasons.

    67 Problems with the CGI script will be translated to error 403.

    68 

    69 For 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