how do i do this - stream file

[Christopher T King]

On Tue, 3 Aug 2004, Ajay wrote:

> I have the script to do the signing and pickle the signature into a file,
> but how do i allow the user to download it?

Instead of pickling it to a file, pickle it to a string (using dumps).  
Then you can change your script to a CGI script like the following:

#!/usr/local/bin/python	<-- replace this with the real location of Python
				on your server
import sys
from pickle import dumps

<do stuff>

mydata = dumps(<something>)

sys.stdout.write('Content-type: application/x-pickle\n\n')
sys.stdout.write(mydata)

That first sys.stdout.write is all that's needed to make a basic CGI
script: the Content-type line tells the web browser what type of
information to expect (the MIME type).  Then you can just send whatever 
data you like (this works with print statements too; but remember that 
they append a \n to your data).

For normal web pages, the MIME type is text/html.  The type
application/x-pickle is just something I made up, since there is no MIME
type corresponding to pickled data.  You may even consider just sending 
the signature as text and use the standard MIME type text/plain.

You should put your script in the cgi-bin/ directory on your web 
server, and set its executable bit if it's a Unix server.