httplint
This Python library lints HTTP messages; it checks them for correctness and reports any issues it finds. httplint can report on 237 different aspects of your HTTP message, including checks against 164 header fields.
It performs all message-level checks for REDbot, but does not perform any 'active' checks by making requests to the network, and it does not have a Web user interface.
Using httplint as a Library
httplint exposes two classes for linting: HttpRequestLinter and HttpResponseLinter. They expose the following methods for telling the linter about the HTTP message:
- As appropriate:
process_request_topline, which takes threebytesarguments:method,uri, andversionprocess_response_topline, which takes threebytesarguments:version,status_code, andstatus_phrase
process_headersfor the headers, taking a list of (name,value) tuples (bothbytes)feed_contentfor the body (which can be called zero to many times), taking aninbytesargumentfinish_contentwhen done, which has two arguments; aboolindicating whether the response was complete, and an optional list of tuples for the trailers, in the same format thatprocess_headerstakes.
For example:
from httplint import HttpResponseLinter
linter = HttpResponseLinter()
linter.process_response_topline(b'HTTP/1.1', b'200', b'OK')
linter.process_headers([
(b'Content-Type', b'text/plain'),
(b'Content-Length', b'10'),
(b'Cache-Control', b'max-age=60')
])
linter.feed_content(b'12345')
linter.feed_content(b'67890')
linter.finish_content(True)
Using httplint from the Command Line
httplint can also be used from the command line. For example:
> curl -s -i --raw https://www.mnot.net/ | httplint -n
* The Content-Length header is correct.
* The resource last changed 8 days 6 hr ago.
* This response allows all caches to store it.
* The server's clock is correct.
* This response is fresh until 3 hr from now.
* This response may still be served by a cache once it becomes stale.
Interpreting Notes
Once a message has been linted, the results will appear on the notes property. This is a list of Note objects, each having the following attributes:
category- the Note's category; seenote.categorieslevel- seenote.levelssummary- a brief, one-line description of the notedetail- a longer explanationsubnotes- a list of childNoteobjects
Note that summary is textual, and needs to be escaped in a markup environment; detail, however, is already escaped HTML.
Continuing our example:
for note in linter.notes:
print(note.summary)
and the output should be:
The Content-Length header is correct.
This response allows all caches to store it.
This response doesn't have a Date header.
This response is fresh until 1 min from now.
This response may still be served by a cache once it becomes stale.
Field Descriptions
The description of any field can be found by calling get_field_description. For example:
>>> from httplint import get_field_description
>>> get_field_description("Allow")
'The `Allow` response header advertises the set of methods that are supported by the resource.'
If a description cannot be found it will return None.
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Metadata
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Release files for httplint 2026.1.5
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Total release size: 1.2 MB
Release files / httplint-2026.1.5.tar.gz
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