How to run a http server which serves a specific path?

this is my Python3 project hiearchy:

projet
  \
  script.py
  web
    \
    index.html

From script.py, I would like to run a http server which serve the content of the web folder.

Here is suggested this code to run a simple http server:

import http.server
import socketserver

PORT = 8000
Handler = http.server.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler
httpd = socketserver.TCPServer(("", PORT), Handler)
print("serving at port", PORT)
httpd.serve_forever()

but this actually serve project, not web. How can I specify the path of the folder I want to serve?

In Python 3.7 SimpleHTTPRequestHandler can take a directory argument:

import http.server
import socketserver

PORT = 8000
DIRECTORY = "web"


class Handler(http.server.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super().__init__(*args, directory=DIRECTORY, **kwargs)


with socketserver.TCPServer(("", PORT), Handler) as httpd:
    print("serving at port", PORT)
    httpd.serve_forever()

and from the command line:

python -m http.server --directory web

---

To get a little crazy... you could make handlers for arbitrary directories:

def handler_from(directory):
    def _init(self, *args, **kwargs):
        return http.server.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler.__init__(self, *args, directory=self.directory, **kwargs)
    return type(f'HandlerFrom<{directory}>',
                (http.server.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler,),
                {'__init__': _init, 'directory': directory})


with socketserver.TCPServer(("", PORT), handler_from("web")) as httpd:
    print("serving at port", PORT)
    httpd.serve_forever()

If you just want serve static file you can do it by running SimpleHTTPServer module using python 2:

 python -m SimpleHTTPServer

Or with python 3:

 python3 -m http.server

This way you do not need to write any script.

https://docs.python.org/3/library/http.server.html#http.server.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler

> This class serves files from the current directory and below, directly > mapping the directory structure to HTTP requests.

So you just need to change the current directory prior to starting the server - see os.chdir

eg:

import http.server
import socketserver
import os

PORT = 8000

web_dir = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), 'web')
os.chdir(web_dir)

Handler = http.server.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler
httpd = socketserver.TCPServer(("", PORT), Handler)
print("serving at port", PORT)
httpd.serve_forever()

Just for completeness, here's how you can setup the actual server classes to serve files from an arbitrary directory:

try
    # python 2
    from SimpleHTTPServer import SimpleHTTPRequestHandler
    from BaseHTTPServer import HTTPServer as BaseHTTPServer
except ImportError:
    # python 3
    from http.server import HTTPServer as BaseHTTPServer, SimpleHTTPRequestHandler


class HTTPHandler(SimpleHTTPRequestHandler):
    """This handler uses server.base_path instead of always using os.getcwd()"""
    def translate_path(self, path):
        path = SimpleHTTPRequestHandler.translate_path(self, path)
        relpath = os.path.relpath(path, os.getcwd())
        fullpath = os.path.join(self.server.base_path, relpath)
        return fullpath


class HTTPServer(BaseHTTPServer):
    """The main server, you pass in base_path which is the path you want to serve requests from"""
    def __init__(self, base_path, server_address, RequestHandlerClass=HTTPHandler):
        self.base_path = base_path
        BaseHTTPServer.__init__(self, server_address, RequestHandlerClass)

Then you can set any arbitrary path in your code:

web_dir = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), 'web')
httpd = HTTPServer(web_dir, ("", 8000))
httpd.serve_forever()

There's a shorter method for Python 3+:

import functools
    
Handler = functools.partial(http.server.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler, directory='/my/dir/goes/here')

You also can run the command line with

python3 -m http.server -d web 8000

Another easy method to serve from a specific directory.

Since you really only need to set the directory parameter for the SimpleHTTPRequestHandler, you can use functools.partial to prepare the handler class without instantiating the class.

from functools import partial
from http.server import HTTPServer, SimpleHTTPRequestHandler
from pathlib import Path


def start_httpd(directory: Path, port: int = 8000):
	print(f"serving from {directory}...")
	handler = partial(SimpleHTTPRequestHandler, directory=directory)
	httpd = HTTPServer(('localhost', port), handler)
	httpd.serve_forever()
    

If you just need a modern web static server,
deno is an alternative file server without any code.

install deno with single line

https://github.com/denoland/deno_install#deno_install

install file server with single line

deno install --allow-net --allow-read https://deno.land/std@0.125.0/http/file_server.ts

use deno file-server

file_server . --port=<port>
# Downloading https://deno.land/[email protected]/http/file_server.ts...
# HTTP server listening on http://0.0.0.0:<port>/

read more https://deno.land/manual/examples/file_server#using-the-codestdhttpcode-file-server