Sharing files easily over HTTP with Python

Getting a quick web server up and running is really simple (if you don’t need a fully blown application server). I find this technique really useful when prototyping web sites that I only need to serve static HTML, CSS & Javascript with.

In the folder that hosts your web application, issue the following Python command:

python -m SimpleHTTPServer

After you do this, you’ll get a confirmation message that your site is available:

Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 8000 ...

And that’s it. You can read up more on this really handy utility here.