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+++ b/doc/book/en/development/devweb/request.rst	Thu May 07 16:33:22 2009 +0200
@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+
+
+The `Request` class (`cubicweb.web`)
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+A request instance is created when an HTTP request is sent to the web server.
+It contains informations such as form parameters, user authenticated, etc.
+
+**Globally, a request represents a user query, either through HTTP or not
+(we also talk about RQL queries on the server side for example).**
+
+An instance of `Request` has the following attributes:
+
+* `user`, instance of `cubicweb.common.utils.User` corresponding to the authenticated
+  user
+* `form`, dictionary containing the values of a web form
+* `encoding`, character encoding to use in the response
+
+But also:
+
+:Session data handling:
+  * `session_data()`, returns a dictionary containing all the session data
+  * `get_session_data(key, default=None)`, returns a value associated to the given
+    key or the value `default` if the key is not defined
+  * `set_session_data(key, value)`, assign a value to a key
+  * `del_session_data(key)`,  suppress the value associated to a key
+
+
+:Cookies handling:
+  * `get_cookie()`, returns a dictionary containing the value of the header
+    HTTP 'Cookie'
+  * `set_cookie(cookie, key, maxage=300)`, adds a header HTTP `Set-Cookie`,
+    with a minimal 5 minutes length of duration by default (`maxage` = None
+    returns a *session* cookie which will expire when the user closes the browser
+    window)
+  * `remove_cookie(cookie, key)`, forces a value to expire
+
+:URL handling:
+  * `url()`, returns the full URL of the HTTP request
+  * `base_url()`, returns the root URL of the web application
+  * `relative_path()`, returns the relative path of the request
+
+:And more...:
+  * `set_content_type(content_type, filename=None)`, adds the header HTTP
+    'Content-Type'
+  * `get_header(header)`, returns the value associated to an arbitrary header
+    of the HTTP request
+  * `set_header(header, value)`, adds an arbitrary header in the response
+  * `cursor()` returns a RQL cursor on the session
+  * `execute(*args, **kwargs)`, shortcut to ``.cursor().execute()``
+  * `property_value(key)`, properties management (`CWProperty`)
+  * dictionary `data` to store data to share informations between components
+    *while a request is executed*
+
+Please note that this class is abstract and that a concrete implementation
+will be provided by the *frontend* web used (in particular *twisted* as of
+today). For the views or others that are executed on the server side,
+most of the interface of `Request` is defined in the session associated
+to the client.