What is ... ?

You want a simple web server started in a directory for dev or whatever, so you could use good ol' python -m SimpleHTTPServer but you are busy and you don't care about the port but UGH you have to pick a port and maybe it collides with the server you're already running on 8000? but OMG picking ports is so hard I don't CARE can't someone just do it for me why yes someone can! It's your operating system, if you ask to listen a socket on port 0 then it will assign one for you from its vast array of 16-bit uints. Oh and then of course you don't want to mouse over to the URL and copy/paste it like a peasant so hey, quickserver will open it FOR YOU in your browser thanks you're welcome.

• Python 2.5 or greater. Works with Py3k.

$ quickserver
Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 61209 ...
http:https://0.0.0.0:61209/
127.0.0.1 - - [19/Jun/2014 17:21:56] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 -

~ YOUR BROWSER HAS MAGICALLY OPENED A NEW TAB TO THIS URL REJOICE ~

Put the quickserver file somewhere in your $PATH, or copy/paste this into your .bashrc:

quickserver () {
    prog=quickserver
    f1=/tmp/.$prog.$$.1
    f2=/tmp/.$prog.$$.2
    mkfifo $f1 $f2
    trap "rm -f $f1 $f2" EXIT
    grep --line-buffered -E '^Serving HTTP on .* port .* \.\.\.$' < $f1 | \
        sed -l -E -e 's|Serving HTTP on (.+) port (.+) \.\.\.|http:https://\1:\2/|' > $f2 &
    {
        read addr <$f2
        echo $addr
        python -m webbrowser -t $addr
    } &
    py2=`python -c 'import sys; print("%i" % (sys.hexversion<0x03000000))'`
    if [ $py2 -eq 0 ]; then
        python -u -m http.server 0 | tee $f1
    else
        python -u -m SimpleHTTPServer 0 | tee $f1
    fi
 }

Copyright 2014 Paul Smith

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at
 
   http:https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.