Read HTTP request data in Python 3?

Question

I am trying to write a basic "echo" HTTP server that writes back the raw data it receives in the request. How can I get the request data as a string?

This is my program:

#!/usr/bin/env python
from http.server import HTTPServer, BaseHTTPRequestHandler


class RequestHandler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
  def do_GET(self):
    print('data', self.rfile.readall())
    self.send_response(200)
    self.send_header('Content-Type', 'text/html')
    self.end_headers()
    message = 'Hello Client!'
    self.wfile.write(bytes(message, 'utf8'))
    return

def server_start():
  address = ('', 1992)
  httpd = HTTPServer(address, RequestHandler)
  httpd.serve_forever()


server_start()

Error:

self.rfile.readall(): '_io.BufferedReader' object has no attribute 'readall'

josepdecid · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-09 15:54:58Z

3

If it's a get request there won't be a body, so the data is going to be sent in the url.

from http.server import HTTPServer, BaseHTTPRequestHandler
import urlparse

class RequestHandler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
    def do_GET(self):
        parsed_path = urlparse.urlparse(self.path)
        print(parsed_path.query)
        ...

Otherwise, you should implement a POST method if you want to send any more complex object as data (take a look at different HTTP methods if you're not familiar with them).

A post method would be something like:

def do_POST(self):
    post_body = self.rfile.readall()

Note that here you can use the method rfile.readall(). Here you have a nice gist with some examples!

answered Feb 9, 2019 at 15:54

josepdecid

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1 Comment

wolfram77 Over a year ago

The gist works great! I was trying to read a known length of bytes like self.rfile.read(5) in do_GET() but it just stuck. It appears do_GET() doesn't support any read. I tried self.rfile.readall() in do_POST() and it didn't work, same error as above. Thanks for the Content-Length method.

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