Trying to set a cookie within a python script

[Dave Angel]

¯º¿Â wrote:
>> On 3 Αύγ, 21:00, Dave Angel <da... at ieee.org> wrote:
>>     
>
>   
>> A string is an object containing characters. A string literal is one of
>> the ways you create such an object. When you create it that way, you
>> need to make sure the compiler knows the correct encoding, by using the
>> encoding: line at beginning of file.
>>     
>
>
> mymessage = "καλημέρα"   <==== string
> mymessage = u"καλημέρα"  <==== string literal?
>
> So, a string literal is one of the encodings i use to create a string
> object?
>
>   
No, both lines take a string literal, create an object, and bind a name 
to that object. In the first case, the object is a string, and in the 
second it's a unicode-string. But the literal is the stuff after the 
equals sign in both these cases.

Think about numbers for a moment. When you say
salary = 4.1

you've got a numeric literal that's three characters long, and a name 
that's six characters long. When the interpreter encounters this line, 
it builds an object of type float, whose value approximates 4.1, 
according to the language rules. It then binds the name salary to this 
object.

> Can the encodign of a python script file be in iso-8859-7 which means
> the file contents is saved to the hdd as greek-iso but the part of
> this variabel value mymessage ="καλημέρα" is saved as utf-8 ot the
> opposite?
>
>   
A given file needs to have a single encoding, or you're in big trouble. 
So a script file is encoded by the text editor in a single encoding 
method, which is not saved to the file (except indirectly if you specify 
BOM). It's up to you to add a line to the beginning to tell Python how 
to decode the file. One decoding for one file.
> have the file saved as utf-8 but one variuable value as greek
> encoding?
>
>   
Variables are not saved to source (script) files. Literals are in the file.
> Encodings still give me headaches. I try to understand them as
> different ways to store data in a media.
>
> Tell me something. What encoding should i pick for my scripts knowing
> that only contain english + greek chars??
> iso-8859-7 or utf-8 and why?
>
>   
Depends on how sure you are that your program will never need characters 
outside your greek character set. Remember Y2K?

> Can i save the sting lets say "Νίκος" in different encodings and still
> print out correctly in browser?
>
> ascii =he standard english character set only, right?
>
>   
>> The web server wraps a few characters before and after your html stream,
>> but it shouldn't touch the stream itself.
>>     
>
> So the pythoon compiler using the cgi module is the one that is
> producing the html output that immediately after send to the web
> server, right?
>
>
>   
>>> For example if i say mymessage =καλημέρα" and the i say mymessage = u"καλημέρα" then the 1st one is a greek encoding variable while the
>>> 2nd its a utf-8 one?
>>>       
>> No, the first is an 8 bit copy of whatever bytes your editor happened to
>> save.
>>     
>
> But since mymessage =καλημέρα" is a string containing greek
> characaters why the editor doesn't save it as such?
>
>   
Because the editor is editing text, not python objects. It's job is 
solely to represent all your keystrokes in some consistent manner so 
that they can be interpreted later by some other program, possibly a 
compiler.
> It reminds me of varibles an valeus where if you say
>
> a = 5, a var becomes instantly an integer variable
> while
> a = 'hello' , become instantly a string variable
>
>
>   
>> mymessage = u"καλημέρα"
>>
>> creates an object that is *not* encoded.
>>     
>
> Because it isn't saved by the editor yet? In what satet is this object
> in before it gets encoded?
> And it egts encoded the minute i tell the editor to save the file?
>
>   
You're confusing timeframes here. Notepad++ doesn't know Python, and 
it's long gone by the time the compiler deals with that line. In 
Notepad++, there are no python objects, encoded or not.
>> Encoding is taking the unicode
>> stream and representing it as a stream of bytes, which may or may have
>> more bytes than the original has characters.
>>     
>
>
> So this line mymessage = u"καλημέρα" what it does is tell the browser
> thats when its time to save the whole file to save this string as
> utf-8?
>
>   
No idea what you mean. The browser isn't saving anything; it doesn't 
even get involved till after the python code has completed.
> If yes, then if were to save the above string as greek encoding how
> was i suppose to right it?
>
> Also if u ise the 'coding line' in the beggining of the file is there
> a need for using the u literal?
>
>   
If you don't use the u literal, then don't even try to use utf-8. You'll 
find that strings have the wrong lengths, and therefore subscripts and 
formatting will sometimes fail in strange ways.
>> I personally haven't done any cookie code. If I were debugging this, I'd
>> factor out the multiple parts of that if statement, and find out which
>> one isn't true. From here I can't guess.
>>     
>
> I did what you say and foudn out that both of the if condition parts
> were always false thast why the if code blck never got executed.
>
> And it is alwsy wrong because the cookie never gets set.
>
> So can you please tell me why this line
>
> cookie['visitor'] = 'nikos', time() + 60*60*24*365 )		#this cookie
> will expire in an year
>
> never created a cookie?
>
>   
As I said, I've never coded with cookies. But to create a cookie, you 
have to communicate with a browser, and that takes lots more than just 
adding an item to a map. Further, your getenv() will normally give you 
the state of the environment at the time your program was launched, so I 
wouldn't expect it to change.

If I had to guess how cookies are done in CGI, I'd say that you probably 
have to talk to the CGI server and terminate, and that afterwards 
there'd be a new launch of your code, from which you could check that 
environment variable to see the results of the cookie.


DaveA