Python server command

I use the inbuilt python server a lot. It allows me to test a directory of HTML files.

I kept forgetting the full command (python -m http.server 8000 --bind 127.0.0.1) so created an alias in my bash profile.

Put this line in ~/.bash_profile:

alias pyserve='python -m http.server 8000 --bind 127.0.0.1'

The to serve, cd into dir and run pyserve.

There was one problem with this approach. If the whole directory gets replaced (deleted then rebuilt) it breaks.

Python 3.8+ has the answer. You can include the directory to serve as an argument using --directory.

To make use of the change I replace the pyserve alias with a function.

function pyserve-dir() {
    python -m http.server 8000 --bind 127.0.0.1 --directory $1
}

Now to serve a directory I run

pyserve-dir <path-to-dir>