A web server stores and serves website content, such as text, photos, videos, and application data, to clients who request it. A web browser application is the most prevalent sort of client, and it requests data from your website when a user clicks on a link or downloads a document on a page displayed in the browser. There are two approaches to setting up a web server in Python. Python includes a webserver by default. You can also build a custom web server with unique features. This tutorial will teach you how to do so.
Python Default Web Server
Run the following command to start a webserver:
python3 -m http.serverThe above code will launch a very simple Web server that will serve files relative to the current directory on port 8000. You can then navigate to in your browser.
The webserver is also reachable over the network using your 192.168.-.- IP address. This is the machine’s default server, from which you can download files.
Change Web Server port
Run the following command to change the port of the webserver:
python3 -m http.server 8080Customize Python Web Server
The above code will set up a very basic server that will serve files from the current directory. It is also possible to build a Web server in python that can respond to HTTP queries and return HTML websites.
from http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, HTTPServer
hostName = "localhost"
serverPort = 8080
class MyWebServer(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
def do_GET(self):
self.send_response(200)
self.send_header("Content-type", "text/html")
self.end_headers()
self.wfile.write(bytes("<html><head><title>Web Server</title></head>", "utf-8"))
self.wfile.write(bytes("<p>Request: %s</p>" % self.path, "utf-8"))
self.wfile.write(bytes("<body>", "utf-8"))
self.wfile.write(bytes("<p>This is an example web server.</p>", "utf-8"))
self.wfile.write(bytes("</body></html>", "utf-8"))
if __name__ == "__main__":
webServer = HTTPServer((hostName, serverPort), MyWebServer)
print("Server started http://%s:%s" % (hostName, serverPort))
try:
webServer.serve_forever()
except KeyboardInterrupt:
pass
webServer.server_close()
print("Server stopped.")The following code set up A web server capable of handling HTTP GET requests and returning an HTML file as a response. When you open a URL like , the method do_GET() is invoked. In this way, we manually send the webpage.
Create Python Flask Web Server
Flask is a web framework and a Python module that allows you to easily create web applications. It has a tiny and easy-to-extend core: it’s a microframework without an ORM (Object Relational Manager) or similar functionality.
from flask import Flask
app = Flask(__name__)
@app.route('/')
def hello_world():
return 'Hello World!'
if __name__ == '__main__':
app.run()Run the file and the webserver will be created:
$ python server.py
* Serving Flask app "hello"
* Running on (Press CTRL+C to quit)It then launches a web server that is solely accessible from your computer. In a web browser, navigate to localhost on port 5000 and you’ll see “Hello World.”
Learn Intermediate Python, GUI Programming in C.
Read more about the python flask web framework.
