Introduction

------------

WebStack is a package which provides a common API for Python Web applications,

regardless of the underlying server or framework environment. It should be

possible with WebStack to design and implement an application and to choose a

deployment environment, without having to go back and rewrite large parts of

that application to work in the chosen environment or in other environments

(should the deployment requirements change after the application has been

written).

Framework Support

-----------------

Currently, BaseHTTPRequestHandler (via BaseHTTPServer in the standard

library), CGI, Jython/Java Servlet API, mod_python, Twisted, Webware and Zope

2 are supported. Each framework has its own set of strengths and weaknesses,

but the idea is that deployment concerns can be considered separately from the

implementation of application functionality. Consult the NOTES.txt files in

each framework's subdirectory of the docs directory for some notes on how

applications may be run in each environment.

Tested Frameworks

-----------------

BaseHTTPRequestHandler    Python 2.2.2, Python 2.3.3

CGI                       Apache 2.0.44

Jython/Java Servlet API   Jython 2.1, Java JDK 1.3.1_02, Tomcat 4.1.27 (Servlet 2.3)

mod_python                3.0.3 (3.1.3 for cookie support)

Twisted                   1.0.5

Webware                   0.8.1, CVS (2004-02-06)

Zope			  2.7.2-0

New in WebStack 0.7 (Changes Since WebStack 0.6)

------------------------------------------------

Fixed path information semantics.

Fixed file upload semantics.

Fixed content type handling (although some improvement remains).

Introduced Zope 2 support.

New in WebStack 0.6 (Changes Since WebStack 0.5)

------------------------------------------------

Introduced Jython/Java Servlet API support.

Minor fixes to example applications and to BaseHTTPRequestHandler.

New in WebStack 0.5 (Changes Since WebStack 0.4)

------------------------------------------------

Changed request body fields/parameters so that they are now represented using

Unicode objects rather than plain strings.

Introduced better support for Unicode in response streams.

New in WebStack 0.4 (Changes Since WebStack 0.3)

------------------------------------------------

Added application definition of user identity, permitting alternative

authentication mechanisms.

Improved BaseHTTPRequestHandler and mod_python reliability around fields from

request bodies.

Provided stream and environment parameterisation in the CGI adapter.

Added LoginRedirect and Login examples.

Added get_path_without_query and fixed get_path behaviour.

New in WebStack 0.3 (Changes Since WebStack 0.2)

------------------------------------------------

Added better header support for Webware (suggested by Ian Bicking).

Introduced CGI and Java Servlet support (the latter is currently

broken/unfinished).

Introduced support for cookies.

Future Work

-----------

Things to consider for future releases: improved cookie support, redirects,

access to shared resources and much better documentation.

Field access needs testing, especially for anything using the cgi.FieldStorage

class, and the way file uploads are exposed should be reviewed (currently the

meta-data is not exposed). The acquisition of fields from specific sources

should be made more strict - some frameworks (eg. mod_python) provide path

fields in the body fields dictionary.

Cookie objects need defining strictly, especially since the standard library

Cookie object behaves differently to mod_python (and possibly Webware) Cookie

objects. Moreover, the set_cookie_value method needs to provide access to the

usual cookie parameters as supported by the frameworks.

Unicode text written to the response stream needs to be suitably encoded

somewhere beneath each application. Better support for content type definition

could be provided.

Release Procedures

------------------

Update the WebStack/__init__.py __version__ attribute.

Update the release notes (see above).

Check the setup.py file and ensure that all package directories are mentioned.

Tag, export, archive, upload.