CGI script with Python - Testing browser on local server

Question

I am messing around trying to test a CGI Python script locally on a Windows machine..
I followed a tutorial, so it's pretty simple. Here is my Python script (named test_cgi.py, located in a cgi-bin directory).

print "Content-type: text/html"
print "<html>"
print "<title>Test CGI</title>"
print "<body>"
print "<p>Hello World!</p>"
print "</body>"
print "</html>"

Here is another script that will start the server:

import BaseHTTPServer
import CGIHTTPServer
import cgitb; cgitb.enable()  ## This line enables CGI error reporting

server = BaseHTTPServer.HTTPServer
handler = CGIHTTPServer.CGIHTTPRequestHandler
server_address = ("", 8000)
handler.cgi_directories = [""]

httpd = server(server_address, handler)
httpd.serve_forever()

After starting the server, when I navigate to http://localhost:8000/test_cgi.py, instead of the browser displaying the HTML contents, it displays the ENTIRE contents of the script. Any ideas?

Yes, all my files have executable permissions.
Yes, I also tried executing python -m CGIHTTPServer from command line.. This starts the server successfully, as does my script. :(

Aside: Your script has a bug. You need to print a blank line after the "Content-type" line. — Robᵩ
– Robᵩ, Commented Dec 5, 2013 at 19:29

rita · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-11 19:22:41Z

1

Figured it out -- I was missing the interpreter line at the beginning of my CGI script.

answered Dec 11, 2013 at 19:22

rita

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JanC · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-05 18:24:34Z

0

You need to change handler.cgi_directories to point to the directory containing the cgi script.

Assuming you have stored the file in a folder named cgi-bin, the following should do the trick:

handler.cgi_directories = ['/cgi']

answered Dec 5, 2013 at 18:24

JanC

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1 Comment

rita Over a year ago

Tried changing to '/cgi' as well as '/cgi-bin' to no avail. :( Still shows entire script.

Robᵩ · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-05 19:54:24Z

0

You have started your server with a current working directory of <some-path>\cgi-bin. This doesn't work very will with CGIHTTPServer. Instead, start it from one level higher (i.e. <some-path>).

Also:

Don't both setting cgi_directories, the default will work.
Point your browser at http://localhost:8000/cgi-bin/test_cgi.py

answered Dec 5, 2013 at 19:54

Robᵩ

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2 Comments

rita Over a year ago

I did what you said and started this one level higher. I also navigated to the link you suggested, which didn't give me 404 but it's still printing all the contents of the page. This is driving me crazy! Thanks anyway.

Robᵩ Over a year ago

IN addition to those two things, you have to not set .cgi_directories.

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