[python] What is the Python 3 equivalent of "python -m SimpleHTTPServer"

What is the Python 3 equivalent of python -m SimpleHTTPServer?

The equivalent is:

python3 -m http.server

In one of my projects I run tests against Python 2 and 3. For that I wrote a small script which starts a local server independently:

$ python -m $(python -c 'import sys; print("http.server" if sys.version_info[:2] > (2,7) else "SimpleHTTPServer")')
Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 8000 ...

As an alias:

$ alias serve="python -m $(python -c 'import sys; print("http.server" if sys.version_info[:2] > (2,7) else "SimpleHTTPServer")')"
$ serve
Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 8000 ...

Please note that I control my Python version via conda environments, because of that I can use python instead of python3 for using Python 3.

Using 2to3 utility.

$ cat try.py
import SimpleHTTPServer

$ 2to3 try.py
RefactoringTool: Skipping implicit fixer: buffer
RefactoringTool: Skipping implicit fixer: idioms
RefactoringTool: Skipping implicit fixer: set_literal
RefactoringTool: Skipping implicit fixer: ws_comma
RefactoringTool: Refactored try.py
--- try.py  (original)
+++ try.py  (refactored)
@@ -1 +1 @@
-import SimpleHTTPServer
+import http.server
RefactoringTool: Files that need to be modified:
RefactoringTool: try.py

Like many *nix utils, 2to3 accepts stdin if the argument passed is -. Therefore, you can test without creating any files like so:

$ 2to3 - <<< "import SimpleHTTPServer"

In addition to Petr's answer, if you want to bind to a specific interface instead of all the interfaces you can use -b or --bind flag.

python -m http.server 8000 --bind 127.0.0.1

The above snippet should do the trick. 8000 is the port number. 80 is used as the standard port for HTTP communications.

As everyone has mentioned http.server module is equivalent to python -m SimpleHTTPServer.
But as a warning from https://docs.python.org/3/library/http.server.html#module-http.server

Warning: http.server is not recommended for production. It only implements basic security checks.

Usage

http.server can also be invoked directly using the -m switch of the interpreter.

python -m http.server

The above command will run a server by default on port number 8000. You can also give the port number explicitly while running the server

python -m http.server 9000

The above command will run an HTTP server on port 9000 instead of 8000.

By default, server binds itself to all interfaces. The option -b/--bind specifies a specific address to which it should bind. Both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are supported. For example, the following command causes the server to bind to localhost only:

python -m http.server 8000 --bind 127.0.0.1

or

python -m http.server 8000 -b 127.0.0.1

Python 3.8 version also supports IPv6 in the bind argument.

Directory Binding

By default, server uses the current directory. The option -d/--directory specifies a directory to which it should serve the files. For example, the following command uses a specific directory:

python -m http.server --directory /tmp/

Directory binding is introduced in python 3.7