Having trouble install Python http package

Question

I am trying to install the Python http package into a virtual environment on my Mac so I can run the Simple HTTP Server but pip complains that it can't import Request from request:

% pip install http
...
ImportError: cannot import name 'Request' from 'request' (/Users/me/.virtualenvs/base/lib/python3.7/site-packages/request/__init__.py)

I installed the request package initially but that didn't help. Thinking that perhaps it needed requests instead, I installed that too to no avail.

Here is my virtual environment:

Package          Version  
---------------- ---------
certifi          2019.9.11
chardet          3.0.4    
get              2019.4.13
idna             2.8      
pip              19.3     
post             2019.4.13
powerline-status 2.7      
psycopg2-binary  2.8.3    
public           2019.4.13
query-string     2019.4.13
request          2019.4.13
requests         2.22.0   
setuptools       41.1.0   
urllib3          1.25.6   
wheel            0.33.4   

I'm running Python 3.7.4 inside a virtual environment built from virtualenv 16.6.2. on macOS Mojave.

Answer 1

upgrade your pip with the below command and try again

python -m pip install –upgrade pip

If the above fails you can also try an earlier version for which it works

pip install --upgrade pip==9.0.3

The error could be because in the current pip, you have to pip install requests module first this in not taken care internally as the dependency is removed

Answer 2

You should not have to install anything to run SimpleHTTPServer . http is in the standard libary.

Also note that SimpleHTTPServer is called http.server in Python 3.