CGI Python problem

[Tim Chase]

> I've placed this file in both public_html and as a test in public_html/
> cgi-bin directories in my local user account (I dont have root access
> - its a corparate network). The file definitely has read and execute
> permission (744) as have the assoicated directories.

My guess would be the permissions are awry -- if I parse that 
correctly, 744 is -rwxr--r-- which means that other users (such 
as the user your server runs as, likely "www" or "wwwdata"?) 
can't execute the shell-script.  As a first pass, I'd ensure that 
the file has permissions, and the directory can be scanned by the 
webserver ("eXecute" permissions on the containing directory):

   bash$ cd ~/public_html/cgi-bin
   bash$ chmod go+rx test.py .

> As a test I tried a perl cgi hello world test, and this worked
> correctly.

If the perl script is working correctly, I suspect the directory 
permissions are set correctly, so I'd compare permission of the 
.pl vs. the .py scripts to see if they're the same. 
Alternatively, if your server is running mod_perl, it might be 
short circuiting the CGI aspect, detecting the .pl file & running 
it, and thus might be a red herring.  (not using perl/mod_perl, I 
don't know the ins and outs of this, so I could be waaaaay off 
base on this line of thinking)

Just my first-pass debugging thoughts,

-tkc