--- a/doc/book/en/devweb/request.rst Tue May 04 14:41:07 2010 +0200
+++ b/doc/book/en/devweb/request.rst Tue May 04 11:04:54 2010 +0200
@@ -4,20 +4,28 @@
Overview
````````
-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.
+A request instance is created when an HTTP request is sent to the web
+server. It contains informations such as form parameters,
+authenticated user, etc. It is a very prevalent object and is used
+throughout all of the framework and applications.
-**Globally, a request represents a user query, either through HTTP or not
-(we also talk about RQL queries on the server side for example).**
+**A request represents a user query, either through HTTP or not (we
+also talk about RQL queries on the server side for example).**
+
+Here is a non-exhaustive list of attributes and methods available on
+request objects (grouped by category):
-An instance of `Request` has the following attributes:
+* `Browser control`:
-* `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
+ * `ie_browser`: tells if the browser belong to the Internet Explorer
+ family
+ * `xhtml_browser`: tells if the browser is able to properly handle
+ XHTML (at the HTTP content_type level)
-But also:
+* `User and identification`:
+
+ * `user`, instance of `cubicweb.common.utils.User` corresponding to
+ the authenticated user
* `Session data handling`
@@ -27,6 +35,36 @@
* `set_session_data(key, value)`, assign a value to a key
* `del_session_data(key)`, suppress the value associated to a key
+* `Edition` (utilities for edition control):
+
+ * `cancel_edition`: resets error url and cleans up pending operations
+ * `create_entity`: utility to create an entity (from an etype,
+ attributes and relation values)
+ * `datadir_url`: returns the url to the merged external resources
+ (|cubicweb|'s `web/data` directory plus all `data` directories of
+ used cubes)
+ * `edited_eids`: returns the list of eids of entities that are
+ edited under the current http request
+ * `eid_rset(eid)`: utility which returns a result set from an eid
+ * `entity_from_eid(eid)`: returns an entity instance from the given eid
+ * `encoding`: returns the encoding of the current HTTP request
+ * `ensure_ro_rql(rql)`: ensure some rql query is a data request
+ * etype_rset
+ * `form`, dictionary containing the values of a web form
+ * `encoding`, character encoding to use in the response
+ * `next_tabindex()`: returns a monotonically growing integer used to
+ build the html tab index of forms
+
+* `HTTP`
+
+ * `authmode`: returns a string describing the authentication mode
+ (http, cookie, ...)
+ * `lang`: returns the user agents/browser's language as carried by
+ the http request
+ * `demote_to_html()`: in the context of an XHTML compliant browser,
+ this will force emission of the response as an HTML document
+ (using the http content negociation)
+
* `Cookies handling`
* `get_cookie()`, returns a dictionary containing the value of the header
@@ -39,10 +77,28 @@
* `URL handling`
+ * `build_url(__vid, *args, **kwargs)`: return an absolute URL using
+ params dictionary key/values as URL parameters. Values are
+ automatically URL quoted, and the publishing method to use may be
+ specified or will be guessed.
+ * `build_url_params(**kwargs)`: returns a properly prepared (quoted,
+ separators, ...) string from the given parameters
* `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
+* `Web resource (.css, .js files, etc.) handling`:
+
+ * `add_css(cssfiles)`: adds the given list of css resources to the current
+ html headers
+ * `add_js(jsfiles)`: adds the given list of javascript resources to the
+ current html headers
+ * `add_onload(jscode)`: inject the given jscode fragment (an unicode
+ string) into the current html headers, wrapped inside a
+ document.ready(...) or another ajax-friendly one-time trigger event
+ * `add_header(header, values)`: adds the header/value pair to the
+ current html headers
+
* `And more...`
* `set_content_type(content_type, filename=None)`, adds the header HTTP