cgi.FieldStorage and REDIRECT_REQUEST_METHOD

Wed Jul 28 14:50:54 EDT 2004

On 2004-07-28, Austyn Bontrager <austynjay at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Should cgi.FieldStorage examine the environment variable 
> REDIRECT_REQUEST_METHOD before examining REQUEST_METHOD?
>
> I'm running Apache, and write my CGI scripts in Python.
> I have this in a /techdocs/.htaccess file:
>
> ErrorDocument 401 /forms/registration.cgi
> Require valid-user
>
>
> The registration script contains a <form method="POST">, so it submits 
> back to itself.
>
> So a typical conversation goes like this:
>
> > GET /techdocs/usermanual.pdf HTTP/1.1
>
>< HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
>
> (browser pops up login box and user types something in username field)
>
> > GET /techdocs/usermanual.pdf HTTP/1.1
> > Authorization: Basic YWFhYTo=
>
>< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
>< <html><body><form method="POST"> ... </form></body></html>
>
> > POST /techdocs/usermanual.pdf HTTP/1.1
> > Authorization: Basic YWFhYTo=
> > Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
> > username=joe&email=joe at mailinator.com
>
>< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
>< <html><body>Thanks for registering. Log in as "joe" to
>< <a href="">Download</a> the file.</body></html>
>
> (user clicks on that Download link)
>
> > GET /techdocs/usermanual.pdf HTTP/1.1
> > Authorization: Basic YWFhYTo=
>
>< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
>< Content-type: application/x-pdf
>< ...
>
>
> So after the POST, in my script I'd expect env variable REQUEST_METHOD 
> to be "POST". However, REQUEST_METHOD is "GET", and 
> REDIRECT_REQUEST_METHOD is "POST", and cgi.FieldStorage can't find the 
> form values.
>
> I'm working around it by putting at the top of my script:
> RRM = "REDIRECT_REQUEST_METHOD"
> if os.environ.get(RRM)
> 	os.environ["REQUEST_METHOD"] = os.environ.get(RRM)
>
>
> Any better ideas? Should this be added to the cgi module (I think it's 
> specific to Apache)? Should I ask this question somewhere else?
>


You might try here:
http://python.org/sigs/web-sig/
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/web-sig

or if you are pretty sure this is an apache only thing try:
http://httpd.apache.org/lists.html