2.4 Testing

Warning : These instructions are meant to be followed if you are using mod_python 3.x or later. If you are using mod_python 2.7.x (namely, if you are using Apache 1.3.x), please refer to the proper documentation.

Make some directory that would be visible on your web site, for example, htdocs/test.

Add the following Apache directives, which can appear in either the main server configuration file, or .htaccess. If you are going to be using the .htaccess file, you will not need the <Directory> tag below (the directory then becomes the one in which the .htaccess file is located), and you will need to make sure the AllowOverride directive applicable to this directory has at least FileInfo specified. (The default is None, which will not work.)

    <Directory /some/directory/htdocs/test> 
        AddHandler mod_python .py
        PythonHandler mptest 
        PythonDebug On 
    </Directory>

(Substitute /some/directory above for something applicable to your system, usually your Apache ServerRoot)

This redirects all requests for URLs ending in .py to the mod_python handler. mod_python receives those requests and looks for an appropriate PythonHandler to handle them. Here, there is a single PythonHandler directive defining mptest as the python handler to use. We'll see next how this python handler is defined.

At this time, if you made changes to the main configuration file, you will need to restart Apache in order for the changes to take effect.

Edit mptest.py file in the htdocs/test directory so that is has the following lines (be careful when cutting and pasting from your browser, you may end up with incorrect indentation and a syntax error):

    from mod_python import apache

    def handler(req):
        req.content_type = 'text/plain'
        req.write("Hello World!")
        return apache.OK

Point your browser to the URL referring to the mptest.py; you should see "Hello World!". If you didn't - refer to the troubleshooting section next.

Note that according to the configuration written above, you can also point your browser to any URL ending in .py in the test directory. You can for example point your browser to /test/foobar.py and it will be handled by mptest.py. That's because you explicitely set the handler to always be mptest, whatever the requested file was. If you want to have many handler files named handler1.py, handler2.py and so on, and have them accessible on /test/handler1.py, /test/handler2.py, etc., then you have to use a higher level handler system such as the mod_python publisher (see 3.1), mpservlets or Vampire. Those are just special mod_python handler that know how to map requests to a dynamically loaded handler.

If everything worked well, move on to Chapter 3, Tutorial.