MicroWebSrv Lightweight HTTP Web Server Supports HTML/Python Language Templating

There are many languages that can be used to create a web page: HTML, HTML5, JavaScript, PHP, etc… But Python? Apparently yes, as MicroWebSrv lightweight web server – mostly designed for ESP32 platforms running MicroPython such as Pycom boards – supports inserting Python code inside “HTML” files with the extension .pyhtml.

The code can be found in Github, and is only comprised of three files.

microWebSrv.py – The Web server
microWebSocket.py – The optional support of WebSockets
microWebTemplate.py – The optional templating language for .pyhtml rendered pages

Beside HTML/Python files, the web server can handle GET, POST, … requests, an embedded full REST API, routing handlers, WebSockets, etc…

That’s what a mixed HTML + Python .pyhtml file may look like:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>TEST PYHTML</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>BEGIN</h1>
    {{ py }}
      def _testFunction(x) :
        return "IN TEST FUNCTION %s" % x
    {{ end }}
    <div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
      {{ for toto in range(3) }}
        This is an HTML test...<br />
        TOTO = {{ toto + 1 }} !<br />
        {{ for toto2 in range(3) }}
          TOTO2 = {{ _testFunction(toto2) }}
        {{ end }}
        Ok good.<br />
      {{ end }}
    </div>
    {{ _testFunction(100) }}<br />
    <br />
    {{ if 2+5 < 3 }}
      IN IF (1)
    {{ elif 10+15 != 25 }}
      IN ELIF (2)
    {{ elif 10+15 == 25 }}
      IN ELIF (3)
    {{ else }}
      IN ELSE (4)
    {{ end }}
  </body>
</html>

<html>

<head>

<title>TEST PYHTML</title>

</head>

<body>

<h1>BEGIN</h1>

def _testFunction(x) :

return "IN TEST FUNCTION %s" % x

This is an HTML test...<br />

TOTO = {{ toto + 1 }} !<br />

TOTO2 = {{ _testFunction(toto2) }}

Ok good.<br />

</div>

{{ _testFunction(100) }}<br />

<br />

IN IF (1)

IN ELIF (2)

IN ELIF (3)

IN ELSE (4)

</body>

</html>

You can use double curly braces {{ and }} to insert MicroPython code, if statements, for loops, or includes.

I’m not sure if this makes really sense for all platforms, but if your board is resource limited, and already runs MicroPython firmware, it would already have a Python interpreter, and you might do without the extra ram/storage footprint for a JavaScript interpreter for example.

Via Guido Stepken on G+ Ubuntu Community

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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4 Comments

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newest

Anonymous

6 years ago

i would just run lighthttpd and php instead, will be much faster then python

Author

cnxsoft

There may not be enough memory and storage to run lighttpd, let alone with PHP support on ESP32 hardware though (TBC).

JotaMG

Thank you for bringing this, it’s a very versatile solution because it can easily access the underlying hardware

Jean-Christophe BOS

5 years ago

Hello all,

If you want, I propose a new powerful embedded Web Server for MicroPython (and CPython) that supports route handlers, modules like WebSockets or PyhtmlTemplate and a lot of simultaneous requests.

Mostly used on ESP32, Pycom WiPy, STM32 on Pyboard, … Robust and efficient (thousands requests on CPython!)

GitHub – Open Source – MIT.

–> https://github.com/jczic/MicroWebSrv2 <–