:mod:`CGIHTTPServer` --- CGI-capable HTTP request handler

=========================================================

.. module:: CGIHTTPServer

   :synopsis: This module provides a request handler for HTTP servers which can run CGI

              scripts.

.. sectionauthor:: Moshe Zadka <moshez@zadka.site.co.il>

.. note::

   The :mod:`CGIHTTPServer` module has been merged into :mod:`http.server` in

   Python 3.0.  The :term:`2to3` tool will automatically adapt imports when

   converting your sources to 3.0.

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

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

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

run CGI scripts.

.. note::

   This module can run CGI scripts on Unix and Windows systems.

.. note::

   CGI scripts run by the :class:`CGIHTTPRequestHandler` class cannot execute

   redirects (HTTP code 302), because code 200 (script output follows) is sent

   prior to execution of the CGI script.  This pre-empts the status code.

The :mod:`CGIHTTPServer` module defines the following class:

.. class:: CGIHTTPRequestHandler(request, client_address, server)

   This class is used to serve either files or output of CGI scripts from  the

   current directory and below. Note that mapping HTTP hierarchic structure to

   local directory structure is exactly as in

   :class:`SimpleHTTPServer.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler`.

   The class will however, run the CGI script, instead of serving it as a file, if

   it guesses it to be a CGI script. Only directory-based CGI are used --- the

   other common server configuration is to treat special extensions as denoting CGI

   scripts.

   The :func:`do_GET` and :func:`do_HEAD` functions are modified to run CGI scripts

   and serve the output, instead of serving files, if the request leads to

   somewhere below the ``cgi_directories`` path.

   The :class:`CGIHTTPRequestHandler` defines the following data member:

   .. attribute:: cgi_directories

      This defaults to ``['/cgi-bin', '/htbin']`` and describes directories to

      treat as containing CGI scripts.

   The :class:`CGIHTTPRequestHandler` defines the following methods:

   .. method:: do_POST()

      This method serves the ``'POST'`` request type, only allowed for CGI

      scripts.  Error 501, "Can only POST to CGI scripts", is output when trying

      to POST to a non-CGI url.

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

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

For example usage, see the implementation of the :func:`test` function.

.. seealso::

   Module :mod:`BaseHTTPServer`

      Base class implementation for Web server and request handler.