Shell script that finds a free TCP port, runs the Python built-in HTTP file server on that port, and then opens a new Google Chrome tab displaying the site's root directory

simplehttpserver.sh

#!/bin/bash                                                                     
#
# To use: cd to a directory you want to browse, and run this script.
#
# This lets you skip finding a free TCP port on your system and
# running SimpleHTTPServer on that port and pointing your browser there.
# Instead, we ask the SimpleHTTPServer to run at whichever free port the
# operating system would like to assign, we watch its output to see what
# port was in fact assigned, and then we open a new tab in the browser
# (in this case, Google Chrome) automatically.

ANY_PORT=0

exec /usr/bin/python -u -m SimpleHTTPServer $ANY_PORT |
    while read -r line                                                          
    do
        if echo $line | grep -q '^Serving'
        then
            PORT=$(echo $line | awk '{print$6}')
            google-chrome http://localhost:$PORT/
        fi
    done

This is handy!

You could make this more generic (for folks that might not be using chrome, god love them) by using xdg-open instead of explicitly executing google-chrome. Just a thought!

Oh, one more thing. Consider /usr/bin/env python over the explicit path to python.

OMG, I suggested implied things over explicit things, twice. The ruby is rubbing off on me :(

/usr/bin/env python whould break on a sys with Python 3 by default.

Argh, *would. I can't spell.