gh-109096: Deprecate http.server.CGIHTTPRequestHandler

[gpshead]

So far I haven't found any practical users of this 1990s era functionality. Given we don't encourage the use of http.server as anyones main serving stack and that using the old CGI child process and environment method fell out of favor ages ago... Lets see if we can deprecate it.

• Issue: test_httpservers causes os.fork DeprecationWarning, can we deprecate CGIHTTPRequestHandler? #109096

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📚 Documentation preview 📚: https://cpython-previews--109387.org.readthedocs.build/

[vstinner]

Since the cgi module was removed in Python 3.13, it makes sense to deprecate CGIHTTPRequestHandler.

wsgiref has BaseCGIHandler, CGIHandler and IISCGIHandler classes. Are they still relevant nowadays? WSGI isn't suppose to replace CGI?

wsgiref.simple_ref uses env['GATEWAY_INTERFACE'] = 'CGI/1.1'. Is it WSGI or CGI? I'm confused :-(

[gpshead]

WSGI used much of the original CGI web server to application interfaces to make migrating from old CGI scripts child processes to in-server-process WSGI calls easy. https://peps.python.org/pep-3333/#specification-details

[JelleZijlstra]

Couple of wording suggestions. Deprecating CGI sounds like a good idea

[vstinner]

Can you please document the deprecation at https://docs.python.org/dev/whatsnew/3.13.html#deprecated and the future removal at https://docs.python.org/dev/whatsnew/3.13.html#pending-removal-in-python-3-15 ?

[vstinner]

LGTM. I dislike the _self hack in the test but it's not a big deal.

[gpshead]

I dislike the _self hack in the test but it's not a big deal.

Agreed. If it weren't in test code set to be deleted in two years I'd have refactored further.

[bedevere-bot]

⚠️⚠️⚠️ Buildbot failure ⚠️⚠️⚠️

Hi! The buildbot s390x RHEL7 3.x has failed when building commit 59073c9.

What do you need to do:

1. Don't panic.
2. Check the buildbot page in the devguide if you don't know what the buildbots are or how they work.
3. Go to the page of the buildbot that failed (https://buildbot.python.org/all/#builders/179/builds/5489) and take a look at the build logs.
4. Check if the failure is related to this commit (59073c9) or if it is a false positive.
5. If the failure is related to this commit, please, reflect that on the issue and make a new Pull Request with a fix.

You can take a look at the buildbot page here:

https://buildbot.python.org/all/#builders/179/builds/5489

Failed tests:

• test_tools

Failed subtests:

• test_freeze_simple_script - test.test_tools.test_freeze.TestFreeze.test_freeze_simple_script

Summary of the results of the build (if available):

==

Click to see traceback logs

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1354, in _find_and_load
File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1325, in _find_and_load_unlocked
File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 929, in _load_unlocked
File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 1004, in exec_module
File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 1100, in get_code
File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 1199, in get_dataTypeError: descriptor 'close' for '_io.BufferedReader' objects doesn't apply to a '_io.FileIO' object
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/dje/cpython-buildarea/3.x.edelsohn-rhel-z/build/Lib/threading.py", line 1059, in _bootstrap_innerself.run()
File "/home/dje/cpython-buildarea/3.x.edelsohn-rhel-z/build/Lib/threading.py", line 996, in runself._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
File "/home/dje/cpython-buildarea/3.x.edelsohn-rhel-z/build/Lib/test/test_interpreters.py", line 483, in task
interp = interpreters.create()
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/home/dje/cpython-buildarea/3.x.edelsohn-rhel-z/build/Lib/test/support/interpreters.py", line 25, in createid= _interpreters.create(isolated=isolated)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^RuntimeError: interpreter creation failed
k
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/dje/cpython-buildarea/3.x.edelsohn-rhel-z/build/Lib/test/test_tools/test_freeze.py", line 28, in test_freeze_simple_script
outdir, scriptfile, python = helper.prepare(script, outdir)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/home/dje/cpython-buildarea/3.x.edelsohn-rhel-z/build/Tools/freeze/test/freeze.py", line 146, in prepare
copy_source_tree(srcdir, SRCDIR)
File "/home/dje/cpython-buildarea/3.x.edelsohn-rhel-z/build/Tools/freeze/test/freeze.py", line 95, in copy_source_tree
shutil.copytree(oldroot, newroot, ignore=ignore_non_src)
File "/home/dje/cpython-buildarea/3.x.edelsohn-rhel-z/build/Lib/shutil.py", line 588, in copytreereturn _copytree(entries=entries, src=src, dst=dst, symlinks=symlinks,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/home/dje/cpython-buildarea/3.x.edelsohn-rhel-z/build/Lib/shutil.py", line 542, in _copytreeraise Error(errors)
shutil.Error: [('/home/dje/cpython-buildarea/3.x.edelsohn-rhel-z/build/build/test_python_16368æ/@test_16368_tmpæ-tardir/extractall_ctrl/ustar/fifotype', '/tmp/test_python_f41cjpzy/tmp92oau7y2/cpython/build/test_python_16368æ/@test_16368_tmpæ-tardir/extractall_ctrl/ustar/fifotype', '`/home/dje/cpython-buildarea/3.x.edelsohn-rhel-z/build/build/test_python_16368æ/@test_16368_tmpæ-tardir/extractall_ctrl/ustar/fifotype` is a named pipe'), ('/home/dje/cpython-buildarea/3.x.edelsohn-rhel-z/build/build/test_python_16368æ/@test_16368_tmpæ-tardir/extractall_none/ustar/fifotype', '/tmp/test_python_f41cjpzy/tmp92oau7y2/cpython/build/test_python_16368æ/@test_16368_tmpæ-tardir/extractall_none/ustar/fifotype', '`/home/dje/cpython-buildarea/3.x.edelsohn-rhel-z/build/build/test_python_16368æ/@test_16368_tmpæ-tardir/extractall_none/ustar/fifotype` is a named pipe')]

[bedevere-bot]

⚠️⚠️⚠️ Buildbot failure ⚠️⚠️⚠️

Hi! The buildbot s390x RHEL8 3.x has failed when building commit 59073c9.

What do you need to do:

1. Don't panic.
2. Check the buildbot page in the devguide if you don't know what the buildbots are or how they work.
3. Go to the page of the buildbot that failed (https://buildbot.python.org/all/#builders/509/builds/4921) and take a look at the build logs.
4. Check if the failure is related to this commit (59073c9) or if it is a false positive.
5. If the failure is related to this commit, please, reflect that on the issue and make a new Pull Request with a fix.

You can take a look at the buildbot page here:

https://buildbot.python.org/all/#builders/509/builds/4921

Failed tests:

• test.test_asyncio.test_subprocess

Failed subtests:

• test_subprocess_consistent_callbacks - test.test_asyncio.test_subprocess.SubprocessThreadedWatcherTests.test_subprocess_consistent_callbacks

Summary of the results of the build (if available):

==

Click to see traceback logs

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/dje/cpython-buildarea/3.x.edelsohn-rhel8-z/build/Lib/test/test_asyncio/test_subprocess.py", line 788, in test_subprocess_consistent_callbacksself.loop.run_until_complete(main())
File "/home/dje/cpython-buildarea/3.x.edelsohn-rhel8-z/build/Lib/asyncio/base_events.py", line 664, in run_until_completereturn future.result()
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/home/dje/cpython-buildarea/3.x.edelsohn-rhel8-z/build/Lib/test/test_asyncio/test_subprocess.py", line 780, in mainself.assertEqual(events, [
AssertionError: Lists differ: ['process_exited', ('pipe_data_received', 1, b'stdout')] != [('pipe_data_received', 1, b'stdout'), ('p[95 chars]ted']

[bedevere-bot]

⚠️⚠️⚠️ Buildbot failure ⚠️⚠️⚠️

Hi! The buildbot PPC64LE Fedora Stable LTO + PGO 3.x has failed when building commit 59073c9.

What do you need to do:

1. Don't panic.
2. Check the buildbot page in the devguide if you don't know what the buildbots are or how they work.
3. Go to the page of the buildbot that failed (https://buildbot.python.org/all/#builders/101/builds/3754) and take a look at the build logs.
4. Check if the failure is related to this commit (59073c9) or if it is a false positive.
5. If the failure is related to this commit, please, reflect that on the issue and make a new Pull Request with a fix.

You can take a look at the buildbot page here:

https://buildbot.python.org/all/#builders/101/builds/3754

Failed tests:

• test_venv

Failed subtests:

• test_zippath_from_non_installed_posix - test.test_venv.BasicTest.test_zippath_from_non_installed_posix

Summary of the results of the build (if available):

==

Click to see traceback logs

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/buildbot/buildarea/3.x.cstratak-fedora-stable-ppc64le.lto-pgo/build/Lib/test/test_venv.py", line 580, in test_zippath_from_non_installed_posix
shutil.copytree(fn, os.path.join(libdir, name))
File "/home/buildbot/buildarea/3.x.cstratak-fedora-stable-ppc64le.lto-pgo/build/Lib/shutil.py", line 588, in copytreereturn _copytree(entries=entries, src=src, dst=dst, symlinks=symlinks,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/home/buildbot/buildarea/3.x.cstratak-fedora-stable-ppc64le.lto-pgo/build/Lib/shutil.py", line 542, in _copytreeraise Error(errors)
shutil.Error: [('/home/buildbot/buildarea/3.x.cstratak-fedora-stable-ppc64le.lto-pgo/build/Lib/test/test_json/__pycache__/test_float.cpython-313.pyc.140735984064752', '/tmp/test_python_jv6l7pxc/tmpviaat877/lib/python3.13/test/test_json/__pycache__/test_float.cpython-313.pyc.140735984064752', "[Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/home/buildbot/buildarea/3.x.cstratak-fedora-stable-ppc64le.lto-pgo/build/Lib/test/test_json/__pycache__/test_float.cpython-313.pyc.140735984064752'")]

[Peterl777]

Only just came across this. As a teacher of Python, where I usually only have access to core Python (no internet access), I have found the CGIHTTPRequestHandlerreally useful for teaching basic web processes. I can't go to a fully-fledged web framework. CGI is really useful for students to get the whole POST/run/output process with minimal effort and maximal engagement.
Disappointed about this deprecation.

[vstinner]

Only just came across this. As a teacher of Python, where I usually only have access to core Python (no internet access)

You can provide Python with a old (non deprecated) copy of CGIHTTPRequestHandler to your students.

[Peterl777]

Yes, that would work. But often I can't bring any external code in either; they've got core Python and that's all I can work with.