We can do a gotomeeting.  Perhaps around lunchtime eastern on Sunday?
On Aug 2, 2014 2:08 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hello Jason,
>
> Thank you very much for your kind and swift offer. I'll do it gladly ...
> but I need to set-up Skype on my station :-( and register a Skype account.
> I'm an old-timer and my only contact is Gmail. I have no G+, no Facebook,
> no Twitter, ...
>
> What is your preferred day and time for a Skype call.
> I live in the Paris-Luxembourg-Brussels time zone. For instance it is now
> Saturday Aug. 2, 20:05.
>
> When you say privately, I suppose a one-to-one call on Skype and I suppose
> I can easily find your name there.
>
> Have a nice Sunday and thanks again,
>
> René
>
> On Saturday, August 2, 2014 6:35:33 PM UTC+2, Jason Garber wrote:
>>
>> Hi Rene,
>>
>> I offer to do a skype call with you to review all of this as I have been
>> there done that and have a crisp understanding of all the working parts.
>>
>> Contact me privately if you want to do this.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Jason
>> On Aug 2, 2014 12:32 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Graham & al.,
>>>
>>> Congratulations for your software and documentation. I have however some
>>> difficulties as outlined in the subject caption.
>>>
>>> I'm building a case study for an application on an intranet within a
>>> company where the users would interact with their browser communicating
>>> with the Apache2/mod_wsgi server (daemon mode + multi-threads).
>>>
>>> However I'm afraid I'm misunderstanding some important underlying
>>> concepts of the architecture. Please allow me to give an example and to
>>> give you my thoughts - which could go wrong somewhere.
>>>
>>> *Part 1:*
>>>
>>> I wrote a simple HTML page with a one field input form.
>>>
>>> In my `environment` dictionary, I have, among other key/value pairs, the
>>> following:
>>>
>>>         REQUEST_METHOD: POST
>>>         REQUEST_URI: /core/my-wsgi-app
>>>         mod_wsgi.callable_object: application
>>>
>>> The first two values come obviously from my html <form
>>> action="core/my-wsgi-app" method="post">...</form>, and the third value is
>>> the default value in the configuration directive (WSGICallableObject
>>> application).
>>>
>>> In my my-wsgi-app script, I have of course:
>>>
>>>         def application (environment, start_response):
>>>                [my code here]
>>>                return [response_body]
>>>
>>> So all is fine and works well but there is something I don't get (I mean
>>> I haven't fully assimilated), certainly in a multi-users, multi-threads,
>>> ... environment. The main question is about the WSGICallableObject.
>>>
>>> The documentation (https://code.google.com/p/modwsgi/wiki/
>>> ConfigurationDirectives#WSGICallableObject) says "*The
>>> WSGICallableObject directive can be used to override the name of the Python
>>> callable object in the script file which is used as the entry point into
>>> the WSGI application.*" [underlining is mine]. For me the WSGI
>>> application is the whole application: when finished the target application
>>> I'm case studying could serve one hundred users, delivering thousands of
>>> pages built dynamically over hundreds of SQL tables, ... Am I right in
>>> thinking than one entry point would be fit for such purpose. The size of
>>> the application is such that I already opted for a daemon configuration
>>> with multi-threads (I do not wish to have users waiting in a single queue
>>> because one of them is building a page that takes seconds to assemble).
>>>
>>> Having one single callable object seems to give me these only 4 options:
>>>
>>> 1) Have only one single REQUEST_URI, say /core/my-wsgi-app,  where only
>>> one callable object (function, class, ...) is used under the one and same
>>> name (application). In such case that callable object is the one and only
>>> full single entry point to the overall application (thousands of pages
>>> built dynamically) and I must care for checking, authorisation, parsing,
>>> dispatching, ... and finally assembling the response and returning it. I'm
>>> wondering if this single script/callable-object could become a bottleneck.
>>> It is the concern I've just expressed. Of course, Python can handle
>>> hundreds of function calls and instance calls. This option makes me doubt I
>>> fully understand the mechanism. I call this option N to 1.
>>>
>>> 2) Have various REQUEST_URI (even one per page if need be) and in each
>>> called script, there would be one callable object with the same name
>>> ("application" as defined in the WSGICallableObject directive). In that
>>> case, I could create a callable instance of a base class but that instance
>>> should bear the application name and use the two positional arguments
>>> passed by mod_wsgi. This option, if used exclusively, seems to me like a
>>> normal "CGI static serving", i.e. one request activates one script (the
>>> whole logic and dynamism is in the script). This point too makes me doubt I
>>> understand the real nature of WSGI. I call this option N to N.
>>>
>>> 3) One could combine option 1 and 2 to create more dynamism without
>>> risking the potential (?) bottleneck of option 1 when used alone. I call
>>> this option N to M (<<N)
>>>
>>> 4) There seems to be a possibility to define the WSGICallableObject per
>>> directory. My understanding is that the REQUEST_URI belonging to a
>>> directory (and its sub-directories) would use that callable object name.
>>> This means for instance that any URI of the form /core/section-1/abc would
>>> have a callable object Application_1, while any URI under
>>> /core/section-N/... would have a callable object Application_N. I haven't
>>> tried this directive yet so I may misunderstand its role.
>>>
>>> This is my overall understanding but I'm afraid I'm missing something
>>> fundamental [please note that I'm not an English speaker and I might have
>>> missed subtleties in the documentation which is quite dense]. I tried to
>>> picture this in a diagram but I'm not sure I got it right:
>>>
>>>  M (html requests) -> 1 (http server) -> N x P (mod_wsgi daemons x
>>> threads) -> X? (Python instance(s) / one per daemon ? I don't know) -> M
>>> (calls to one object in one URI or to many objects - named the same - in
>>> many URI ? ) and back to the user via the same route.
>>>
>>> I assume that one user html request generates ultimately one call to a
>>> callable object (give or take) : that's why I use M in toth cases. Is this
>>> assumption correct ? My dilemma is that I can't understand the spread of
>>> the load between the 2 extremes: one URI containing the `application`
>>> callable object (that is eventually called hundreds of times per second) or
>>> many hundreds URI each containing a callable object named `application`
>>> that all get called much less frequently.
>>>
>>> *Part 2:*
>>>
>>> As a consequence of this hazy understanding of mine, I wonder why can't
>>> the name of the callable object be chosen on demand ?
>>>
>>> If I refer to PEP3333 (http://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3333/) I
>>> understand that:
>>>  "
>>> *A server or gateway must invoke the application object using positional
>>> (not keyword) arguments. (E.g. by calling result = application(environ,
>>> start_response)*"
>>>
>>> So my guess is that, still referring to the example at the top, one
>>> thread in mod_wsgi loads (I wouldn't call this an import) the
>>> /core/my-wsgi-app script and calls application(environment, start_response)
>>> that has been defined in it. Is this the correct mechanism ?
>>>
>>> Could we imagine that mod_wsgi would sometime call my_App (arg1, arg2),
>>> some other time call your_App (req, resp) or call Small_app (in, out) where
>>> my_App, your_App, Small_app would be defined because mod_wsgi would be able
>>> to set dynamically the WSGICallableObject . Imagine that in the
>>> WSGIImportScript script file, we would have:
>>>
>>>         def my_App (param1, param2):
>>>              [code here]
>>>              return [my_Response]
>>>
>>>         def your_App (param1, param2):
>>>              [code here]
>>>              return [your_Response]
>>>
>>>         def Small_app (param1, param2):
>>>              [code here]
>>>              return [Small_response]
>>>
>>> all the functions would be ready to be called.
>>>
>>> I suppose that in any case we are limited:
>>>
>>> A)   by the HTTP protocol (URI given via the action attribute, the POST,
>>> GET, OPTIONS, ... from the method attribute and the key/value pairs from
>>> the various input fields); and
>>>
>>> B)   by directives we could give to configure mod_wsgi. I guess it is
>>> not the role neither the intend to build some "user logic" within mod_wsgi.
>>>
>>> *Conclusions:*
>>>
>>> 1) Am I correct in my understanding of mod_wsgi as expressed here above
>>> (Part 1) ? Beware that I could be out of my depth, i.e. talking about
>>> something I don't properly understand. In that case please correct me or
>>> complement my view.
>>>
>>> 2) Do we need to dynamically choose the callable object name for the
>>> sake of dynamism and multiplicity ?
>>>
>>> ->  If not, the current set-up is enough. In which case is the preceding
>>> point ( 1) ) complete and correct ?
>>>
>>> ->  If yes, how to do it simply and elegantly ?
>>>
>>>         => Idea 1: create an extra key/value pair (e.g.
>>> wsgi_callable_object=my_application). It seems cumbersome to me.
>>>
>>>         => Idea 2: if the URI were to have the form
>>> /core/my-wsgi-app/_my_application then mod_wsgi could provide:
>>>                         REQUEST_URI: /core/my-wsgi-app
>>>                         mod_wsgi.callable_object: my_application
>>>              in the 'environment` dictionary because it would strip the
>>> trailing part beginning with an underscore provided it is told to do so by
>>> a directive;
>>>              otherwise it would behave as now and deliver:
>>>                         REQUEST_URI: /core/my-wsgi-app/_my_application
>>>                         mod_wsgi.callable_object: application
>>>
>>> *Thanks:*
>>>
>>> I do realize this is an unusual post (maybe it should find its way in
>>> the group working on the documentation) but I would be very happy if some
>>> of you could answer / feedback to me. In any case I do thank you all in
>>> advance.
>>>
>>> René
>>>
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