Python http server get post body

1 Answer

You can access POST body in do_POST method like this:

for python 2

content_len = int(self.headers.getheader('content-length', 0))

for python 3

content_len = int(self.headers.get('Content-Length'))

and then read the data

post_body = self.rfile.read(content_len)

Brown Bear

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answered May 12, 2011 at 10:52

Roman BodnarchukRoman Bodnarchuk

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7

• Note that this leads to a TypeError if the content-length header is not set (e.g. by calling curl -X POST http://your-endpoint). So either make sure to catch it or set a default value for the content-length header: content_len = int(self.headers.getheader('content-length', 0))

  Apr 11, 2014 at 12:35

• in python3: self.headers.get(...)

  Mar 11, 2015 at 3:49

• Any reason why self.rfile.read() doesn't just read the entire input on its own? Why do we need to specify the number of bytes to read?

  Jun 19, 2016 at 19:53

• @sevko because otherwise you will start reading the next pipelined request sent by the client.

  Nov 9, 2017 at 21:43

• This doesn't feel safe. What happens if a malicious client sends a very large 'Content-Length' value? Won't that cause the server to read more data than it should?

  Dec 24, 2021 at 12:32

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