server question

[vin]

Ok pasting of the error was wrong I did it last night while being very 
tired.

here is the code again

import socket
 
def start_server(PORT):
    HOST = ''                 # Symbolic name meaning the local host
    s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
    s.bind((HOST, PORT))
    s.listen(1)
    conn, addr = s.accept()
    print 'Connected by', addr
    while 1:
        data = conn.recv(1024)
        if not data : break
        conn.send(eval(data))
    conn.close()

now I telnet to the machine and type 5*6 and then 'enter' as follows

$ telnet 127.0.0.1 8484
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to 127.0.0.1.
Escape character is '^]'.
5*6 [enter]

and server responds ....

>>> import server
>>> server.start_server(8484)
Connected by ('127.0.0.1', 1032)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
  File "server.py", line 13, in start_server
    conn.send(eval(data))
  File "<string>", line 1
    5*6
       ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Now I know that conn.recv() should return a string, but it seems that I 
can't evaluate that string with eval.  You can print 'data' but not do 
eval(data) it always reports syntax error.  Why?

Thanks for the references I'll look into it. 

Vin