Serve HTML from extensionless URLs in http.server

[jfrost-mo]

Feature or enhancement

Add handling for extensionless URLs in http.server

For example if you have a folder containing foo.html and run python3 -m http.server from it, you would be able to use the URL http://localhost:8000/foo rather than having to use http://localhost:8000/foo.html.

Pitch

A common pattern in URL design is to omit the file extension for pages, as this
both makes the URL look nicer and makes it technology agnostic (it doesn't
matter if the page is written in PHP or HTML).

The motivation for this change is the common use case of the python HTTP server
for static website development, especially amongst those learning HTML/CSS.
This change allows them to use the best practice of omitting extensions in
links and still having navigation between multiple pages working.

Previous discussion

Needs to have one on https://discuss.python.org/c/ideas/6.

Linked PRs

• gh-100463: add support for default extensions in SimpleHTTPServer #101174

[ericvsmith]

This should be discussed on https://discuss.python.org/c/ideas/6.

I wouldn't support this feature, because http.server isn't meant to be used as a production web server, and I'm concerned about any possible security implications of this.

[jfrost-mo]

Fair enough concerns. My thinking is that this would mainly be used for local development before being deployed to a proper webserver for actual use. I'll open a discussion on the discourse and go into more detail about my rational there.

[merwok]

IMO, if http.server supports serving index.html when found in a directory that matches the URL, then it’s good enough.

[Fraetor]

I've opened a discussion on discuss.python.org.

At the very least this issue led to me finding a bug. (#100474)

[jfrost-mo]

The generally consensus from this discussion is that this is something that is better handled in user code by subclassing the server. As such I'm going to close this issue.