Mike, I have a feeling that Apache has ways of generating those date/time strings for last modified for you. Thus, the routine shouldn't be required. The real problem is that mod_python doesn't expose the methods which may actually be useful to you.
Can you look through the Apache functions described in: http://162.105.203.19/apache-doc/138.htm and indicate whether if functions like: ap_set_etag() ap_update_mtime() ap_set_last_modified() you could more easily do the same thing. The request object already provides equivalent to ap_meets_conditions(), but not these others. I also find the function: ap_discard_request_body() to be interesting. That might be interesting to have access to as well. Graham Mike Looijmans wrote .. > > >We probably want to defer until after 3.2.7 (final) is released to have > >any serious discussion about what should constitute version 3.3, but > >am still curious to know at this point where your interests in 3.3 lie. > >Is it simply to help finish up eliminating all these known issues/bugs > >or do you have other ideas in mind as to the direction of mod_python? > > Well, since you asked... > > I'd like to see more HTTP level helper functions. For one thing, I keep > writing the same stuff for handling if-modified-since headers, accept, > and similar construct. Having one library to handle these with would be > very helpful. > > For example, a function to format a datetime tuple into a HTTP style > date string (this one should *definitely* go into mod_python), as well > as its counterpart. Note that this implementation is not correct as it > does not handle timezones... > > ## > > weekdayname = ('Mon', 'Tue', 'Wed', 'Thu', 'Fri', 'Sat', 'Sun') > > monthname = (None, > 'Jan', 'Feb', 'Mar', 'Apr', 'May', 'Jun', > 'Jul', 'Aug', 'Sep', 'Oct', 'Nov', 'Dec') > > def httpdate(dt): > """Return the current date and time formatted for a > message header.""" > now = time.time() > year, month, day, hh, mm, ss, wd, y, z = dt > s = "%s, %02d %3s %4d %02d:%02d:%02d GMT" % ( > weekdayname[wd], > day, monthname[month], year, > hh, mm, ss) > return s > > ## > > Another thing I use very often (when writing DB apps) is the > if-modified-since mechanism. This helps reducing the load on the server > since most clients will be visiting the same page a number of times in > a > session. > Calling checkLastModified in my code quickly aborts rendering the page > if it hasn't changed since the last visit. > (This one is incomplete as well - should add support for etag and length > extensions. The etag is very useful when things like username can change > between pages.) > > ## > > def checkLastModified(req, lastmod): > """If lastmod is non-zero (should be datetime object), outputs > a Last-Modified header. If the browser supplied an identical > If-Modified-Since header, this method raises > apache.SERVER_RETURN with apache.HTTP_NOT_MODIFIED > which informs the browser to use its cached version. > """ > if lastmod: > ifmodsince = req.headers_in.get('if-modified-since', None) > strlastmod = httpdate(lastmod.timetuple()) > if ifmodsince: > # TODO: We might want to do <= i.s.o. == > if strlastmod == ifmodsince: > raise apache.SERVER_RETURN, apache.HTTP_NOT_MODIFIED > req.headers_out.add('Last-Modified', strlastmod) > > (note to self: Learn to hit "Reply All" instead of just "Reply" > -- > Mike Looijmans > Philips Natlab / Topic Automation
