Re: Using session2 in Quixote 2.5

On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 4:41 PM, Ed Prue <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello.  I'm a new Quixote user.  I found Quixote earlier this year,
> and the design philosophy really appealed to me, so I chose it over
> "djother-framework" that I was evaluating.
>
> I'm trying to use session2, but the available documentation (I think
> I've found all there is on the web -- Titus, Dave, mems-exchange,
> Linux Journal overview, whatever else Google would yield) -- the
> available documentation shows not-quite-enough to get me there.  I've
> experimented some, but a definitive example would help.  There are
> three things I'm reaching for:
>
> 1) What to use session2 for --
>    Just as a cookie generator/retriever, with just enough user ID
> info stored in it to allow me to retrieve a user profile from wherever
> I store user profiles in my database?  This seems "correct" to me
>
>    Alternately, I might stash more user configuration type info in
> the session object -- but that seems "less correct" to me, for some
> reason I can't yet rationalize (don't use cookies for general storage,
> or some such...)
>
>
> 2) Which session2.Session() and session2.SessionManager() methods to
> override -- it looks to me like Session.start_request() is the only
> Session method I need to override; and maybe nothing in
> SessionManager(?)
>
>
> 3) When to call what seem to me to be the key methods -- or if I
> should call any methods myself(?) Perhaps, if I just override the
> correct methods, I don't need to call anything(?)  Comments are not
> particularly helpful here.  From SessionManager.get_session():
>
>        "Note that this method does *not* cause the new session to be
>        stored in the session manager, nor does it drop a session cookie
>        on the user.  Those are both the responsibility of
>        finish_successful_request()."
>
> And then, from SessionManager.maintain_session():
>
>        "This method is called after servicing an HTTP request, just
>        before the response is returned.  If a session contains
>        information, a cookie is dropped on the client and True
>        is returned.  If not, the session is forcibly expired and
>        False is returned."
>
> Ahh! -- after looking again, I see that finish_successful_request()
> calls maintain_session(), so I guess that answers that question --
> finish_successful_request() will take care of storing the session
> content to the designated store, as long as a session exists and
> maintain_session() doesn't return a False value.
>
> So -- it looks like, to make basic use of session2, I should just
> subclass session2.Session, override Session.start_request(), choose a
> session storage type, follow the available example code for creating a
> store and a session manager, and viola! -- be on my way.  Has my
> "read-the-source" discipline (which is not yet a repeatable discipline
> for me :) led me to right use of session2?  I'd appreciate any
> comments, corrections, elucidations, etc.
>
> Thanks for the great documentation and examples that *are* available
> on the web for getting and using Quixote.  It was (relatively)
> painless to get up and running.  I'm in development now -- haven't yet
> deployed my first production site (in a smallish medium-sized
> corporation.)  I hope that the lack of traffic on the mailing list
> means that folks are busy using Quixote, and not having many problems
> :)
>
> Cheers,
> Ed Prue

In my application I have a session module:

===
from session2.Session import Session as _Session

class Session(_Session, object):
    def __init__(self, id):
        super(Session, self).__init__(id)
        self.message = None
        self.my_chemicals = []
        self.my_message = None
        self.my_removed = []
        self.search = None

    def __str__(self):
        return "<Session %s>" % pprint.pformat(vars(self))

    def has_info(self):
        return True
===


In my top-level executable I have:

===
def session_manager():
    """For developers' workstations."""
    store = DirectorySessionStore(config.sessions_dir, create=True)
    return SessionManager(store, Session)

def create_publisher():
    quixote.DEFAULT_CHARSET = config.output_encoding
    publisher = Publisher(RootDirectory(),
        display_exceptions=config.display_exceptions,
        session_cookie_name="MyApp_Session",
        session_manager=session_manager(),
        )
    return publisher
===

The attributes in the session object are, of course, specific to my application.

-- 
Mike Orr <[email protected]>