Question

I’m new to cgi and python, so I’ve been making quite a few mistakes. The problem is that if something goes wrong with the script, I just get a 500 error on the webpage. The only way I can see what caused the error is by executing the page via ssh, but the page involves file uploads, so I can’t test that part.

Is there a way I can output Python errors to a file?

Answer 1

there are a couple of options, use the logging module as directed, you can tail the server’s error log, and you can enable cgitb with import cgitb; cgitb.enable()

Depending on exactly where the error occurs, the error will show up in different places, so checking all three, and using print statements and exception blocks helps to debug your code.

With file uploads, I’ve found I have to explicitly state enctype="multipart/form-data" in the form tag or it breaks, often quietly.