cgi.FieldStorage and REDIRECT_REQUEST_METHOD

Tue Jul 27 20:38:30 EDT 2004

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?

Thanks
Austyn