[Web-SIG] Form field dictionaries

[David Fraser]

Steve Holden wrote:

>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: web-sig-bounces+sholden=holdenweb.com at python.org
>>[mailto:web-sig-bounces+sholden=holdenweb.com at python.org]On Behalf Of
>>David Fraser
>>Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 2:01 PM
>>To: Ian Bicking
>>Cc: web-sig at python.org
>>Subject: Re: [Web-SIG] Form field dictionaries
>>
>>
>>Ian Bicking wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>On Friday, October 24, 2003, at 11:28 AM, David Fraser wrote:
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>That's fine, but I think it's important that these methods are
>>>>available as an addition to a standard dictionary interface.
>>>>I think the key point is, if somebody wants a list of values, they
>>>>probably know that they want a list.
>>>>It's very difficult to write code by accident that would handle a
>>>>list of values as well as a string.
>>>>So if somebody knows they want a list in certain
>>>>        
>>>>
>>circumstances, they
>>    
>>
>>>>could call getlist()
>>>>But I think the default dictionary return value should be
>>>>        
>>>>
>>the same as
>>    
>>
>>>>getfirst().
>>>>That saves endless checks for lists for those who don't need them.
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>Every time I have encountered an unexpected list it has
>>>      
>>>
>>been because
>>    
>>
>>>of a bug somewhere else in my code.  I might use a getone() method
>>>that threw some exception when a list was encountered, but
>>>      
>>>
>>I'd *never*
>>    
>>
>>>want to use getfirst().  getfirst() is sloppy programming.
>>>      
>>>
>>(getlist()
>>    
>>
>>>is perfectly fine though)
>>>      
>>>
>>There seems to be a lot of agreement on this...
>>So let's take it that the interface will be a dictionary,
>>with an extra
>>method defined, getlist, which will return multiple items if multiple
>>items were defined, or a list containing a single item otherwise.
>>The next question is, how do we handle the Get/Post/Both situation?
>>One way would be to have methods on the request object that
>>return the
>>desired dictionary
>>Somebody also suggested including Cookies, as is done in PHP
>>- I'm not
>>sure this is a good idea
>>
>>    
>>
>The only nit I would pick is to have getlist() return a list even when
>the response contained a single value.
>  
>
Sure, that's what I meant above, sorry if it wasn't clear

David