[Zope3-dev] Re: Testbrowser Enhancement

[Benji York]

Stephan Richter wrote:
> Hi you two,
> 
> in the SchoolTool project, we have the need to sometimes use different HTTP 
> verbs to send data somewhere. Browser.open only supports sending data, but 
> does not allow changing the HTTP verb. I checked mechanize and it does not 
> support it either. Do you guys have any idea on how to solve the problem?

I don't think it would be too hard to do because mechanize uses the 
Python stdlib to do its communication, which I supports using methods 
other than GET.  It would require coordination with John J. Lee, and 
neither Gary nor I would have time to do that for a while.

> I would like to support a "verb" keyword in open and either extend mechanize 
> to support it too or have an alternative way of doing this, if the verb does 
> not equal GET.
> 
> I really want to use testbrowser for this, since it is more consistent and I 
> can better see which user sent the data.

One problem is that you'll have to also add a body parameter to actually 
get the content into the request.

Philosophically testbrowser is about simulating a browser, and in this 
case you want to simulate something that browsers don't do (PUTs of 
calendar data).  Therefore I really don't like the verb/body extension.

I do see the annoyance with a continuity loss when using the "http" 
function to do the PUT, but the code itself is very clear; I like your 
current solution.
-- 
Benji York
Senior Software Engineer
Zope Corporation