Beginning Python - From Novice to Professional

328 CHAPTER 15 ■ PYTHON AND THE WEB
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Figure 15-2 shows the result of accessing the script in Listing 15-7 through a Web server.
Figure 15-2. The result of executing the CGI script in Listing 15-7
One Step Up: mod_python
If you like CGI, you will probably love mod_python. It’s an extension (module) for the Apache
Web server, and you can get it from the mod_python Web site, http://modpython.org. It makes
the Python interpreter directly available as a part of Apache, which makes a whole host of
different cool stuff possible. At the core, it gives you the ability to write Apache handlers in
Python, as opposed to in C, which is the norm. The mod_python handler framework gives you
access to a rich API, uncovering Apache internals and more.
In addition to the basic functionality, however, it comes with several handlers that can
make Web development a more pleasant task. There is the CGI handler, which lets you run CGI
scripts using the mod_python interpreter, considerably speeding up their execution; there is
the PSP handler, which lets you mix HTML and Python code to create executable Web pages, or
Python Server Pages; and there is the publisher handler, which lets you call Python functions
using URLs. In this section, I will focus on these three standard handlers; if you want to write
your own custom handlers, you should check out the mod_python documentation.