Sending HTML through Python Socket Server

Question

I am trying to learn some HTTP/CGI stuff and I want to print HTML on the webpage when you view it in your browser but am not sure what the correct syntax is when using the socket library:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import random
import socket
import time

s = socket.socket()         # Create a socket object
host = socket.getfqdn() # Get local machine name
port = 9082
s.bind((host, port))        # Bind to the port

print 'Starting server on', host, port
print 'The Web server URL for this would be http://%s:%d/' % (host, port)

s.listen(5)                 # Now wait for client connection.

print 'Entering infinite loop; hit CTRL-C to exit'
while True:
    # Establish connection with client.    
    c, (client_host, client_port) = s.accept()
    print 'Got connection from', client_host, client_port
    c.send('Server Online\n')
    c.send('HTTP/1.0 200 OK\n')
    c.send('Content-Type: text/html\n')
    c.send(' """\
        <html>
        <body>
        <h1>Hello World</h1> this is my server!
        </body>
        </html>
        """ ')
    c.close()

The first three c.send lines work and then there is a syntax issue with the last line where I put in HTML.

falsetru · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-16 04:28:51Z

4

Use triple-quote string:

c.send("""
    <html>
    <body>
    <h1>Hello World</h1> this is my server!
    </body>
    </html>
""") # Use triple-quote string.

Beside the syntax error, there's multiple issues in the code. Following is a modified version (while loop only, see comments to see what modification made)

while True:
    # Establish connection with client.    
    c, (client_host, client_port) = s.accept()
    print 'Got connection from', client_host, client_port
    #c.send('Server Online\n') # This is invalid HTTP header
    c.recv(1000) # should receive request from client. (GET ....)
    c.send('HTTP/1.0 200 OK\n')
    c.send('Content-Type: text/html\n')
    c.send('\n') # header and body should be separated by additional newline
    c.send("""
        <html>
        <body>
        <h1>Hello World</h1> this is my server!
        </body>
        </html>
    """) # Use triple-quote string.
    c.close()

answered Jan 16, 2014 at 4:28

falsetru

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5 Comments

Goose Over a year ago

It prints the Hello world line, but for some reason doesn't print the c.send('HTTP/1.0 200 OK\n') c.send('Content-Type: text/html\n')

falsetru Over a year ago

@Goose, They're HTTP headers. They are not printed in the browser.

falsetru Over a year ago

@Goose, You can check HTTP headers using browser's debugging function. (Firebug for Firebug, Developer Tools in Chrome, ...)

Goose Over a year ago

Interesting, the "browser" automatically knows this code to be a header? Must be a standard then?

falsetru Over a year ago

@Goose, HTTP headers come first, then newline, body after them. See HTTP RFC (warning: It's very long).

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