CGI POST problem was: How to read POSTed data

[Dan Perl]

<and-google at doxdesk.com> wrote in message 
news:1107659974.048175.221770 at z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Dan Perl wrote:
>
>> how is a multipart POST request parsed by CGIHTTPServer?
>
> It isn't; the input stream containing the multipart/form-data content
> is passed to the CGI script, which can choose to parse it or not using
> any code it has to hand - which could be the 'cgi' module, but not
> necessarily.
>
>> Where is the parsing done for the POST data following the header?
>
> If you are using the 'cgi' module, then cgi.parse_multipart.

Thanks, at least I was right not to find that in the CGIHTTPServer and 
BaseHTTPServer code.  So I have to use that instead of FieldStorage?  I was 
expecting FieldStorage to encapsulate all that for all the cases, POST with 
multipart/form-data being just a special case.

I took a brief look at cgi.parse_multipart and I still have to figure out 
how to provide the fp argument.  Any code examples anywhere?  All the 
examples I have found were using only FieldStorage:
    http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lab2q/lesson_7/
    http://www.devshed.com/index2.php?option=content&task=view&id=198&pop=1&page=0&hide_js=1
    http://gnosis.cx/publish/programming/feature_5min_python.html
    http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2001-June/001368.html

BTW, I also tried the example in the last link and that doesn't work either, 
with similar results/problems as my script.  I think all those examples are 
a few years old, has something changed since then?

>> As a side note, I found other old reports of problems with cgi
>> handling POST  requests, reports that don't seem to have had a
>> resolution.
>
> (in particular?)

I made the comment and now I have to back that up:
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2002-February/thread.html#88686
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2002-September/thread.html#124109

> FWIW, for interface-style and multipart-POST-file-upload-speed reasons
> I wrote an alternative to cgi, form.py
> (http://www.doxdesk.com/software/py/form.html). But I haven't found
> cgi's POST reading to be buggy in general.

I was quite careful in calling the code "fragile" and I am not normally the 
kind of person to mince words.  I would have said buggy if I meant that or I 
could have used even worse words.  But even the rationale behind the patch 
that caused the bug I mentioned ("Remove dependencies on (deprecated) rfc822 
and mimetools modules, replacing with email.") and even your calling this 
part of the standard library "a bit crufty in places due to age" support my 
view that this code needs work.

Besides, I am not happy at all with the idea of having to use 
cgi.parse_multipart instead of FieldStorage.  It seems a lot more low level 
than I would like to even if it offers more control.  I looked at your 
form.py and you seem to address that.  Sorry though, I will probably not use 
it.  Once I learn enough from the cgi module I will just move on to using a 
framework like CherryPy.

Dan