[Pythonmac-SIG] testing HTML with Python

[Bob Ippolito]

On Tuesday, Sep 16, 2003, at 16:40 America/New_York, Jack Jansen wrote:
>>> Ive got a tool that I have developed with python on iMac where the
>>> user inputs text into an HTML page & my Python program(also 
>>> containing
>>> the CGI) executes it to produce a certain layout in association with
>>> reportlab.
>>>
>>> I need to test it. is there a way I could do that locally on my iMac
>>> OS X?without up loading it to a server?
>>
>> I'm a little confused (admittedly, I didn't think about it very hard
>> :-), but you know that OS X comes with Apache, right?
>
> S/he probably didn't, having said "This is the first time I work with 
> iMac!!"...
>
>>   Investigate
>> "Personal Web Sharing" in the "Sharing" panel of System Preferences
>> and point your browser at 127.0.0.1.
>
> But I seem to remember that someone reported here that getting Python
> CGI scripting to work with the included Apache was a bit of work.
>
> Do I remember right? Can anyone post the details again?

I don't see why any script marked +x sitting in 
/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables wouldn't Just Work.. I see in 
/etc/httpd/httpd.conf (with the non-relevant parts stripped):

LoadModule cgi_module         libexec/httpd/mod_cgi.so
LoadModule alias_module       libexec/httpd/mod_alias.so
AddModule mod_cgi.c
AddModule mod_alias.c
<IfModule mod_alias.c>
     ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables/"
     <Directory "/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables">
         AllowOverride None
         Options None
         Order allow,deny
         Allow from all
     </Directory>
</IfModule>

Of course if you want .cgi programs to be executable elsewhere, you 
need to uncomment (from the <IfModule mod_mime.c> block):
	AddHandler cgi-script .cgi

If you end up making this change, you will surely have to restart 
Apache (sudo /usr/sbin/apachectl restart).

Of course, httpd.conf needs to be modified as root (sudo vi 
/etc/httpd/httpd.conf).. but anyone with admin group should be able to 
just dump executables into /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables.

Maybe the "bit of work" referred to compiling mod_python.. which was a 
pain in the ass from what I remember (I think I did it back in 10.1), 
but I haven't even tried to use mod_python since I learned Twisted.

-bob