BaseHTTPHandler from the BaseHTTPServer module doesn't seem to provide any convenient way to access http request parameters. What is the best way to parse the GET parameters from the path, and the POST parameters from the request body?

Right now, I'm using this for GET:

def do_GET(self):
    parsed_path = urlparse.urlparse(self.path)
    try:
        params = dict([p.split('=') for p in parsed_path[4].split('&')])
    except:
        params = {}

This works for most cases, but I'd like something more robust that handles encodings and cases like empty parameters properly. Ideally, I'd like something small and standalone, rather than a full web framework.