How to parse BaseHTTPRequestHandler.path

Question

I'm using Python's BaseHTTPRequestHandler. When I implement the do_GET method I find myself parsing by hand self.path

self.path looks something like:

/?parameter=value&other=some

How should I parse it in order to get a dict like

{'parameter': 'value', 'other':'some'}

Thanks,

Answer 1

The cgi and urlparse modules have that: http://docs.python.org/library/urlparse.html#urlparse.parse_qs

Answer 2

Use parse_qs from the urlparse module, but make sure you remove the "/?":

from urlparse import parse_qs
s = "/?parameter=value&other=some"
print parse_qs(s[2:]) # prints {'other': ['some'], 'parameter': ['value']}

Note that each parameter can have multiple values, so the returned dict maps each parameter name to a list of values.