=head1 NAME

HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler - Mason/mod_perl interface

=head1 SYNOPSIS

    my $ah = new HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler (..name/value params..);
    ...
    sub handler {
        my $r = shift;
        $ah->handle_request($r);
    }

=head1 DESCRIPTION

The ApacheHandler object links Mason to Apache, running components in
response to HTTP requests. It is controlled primarily through
parameters to the new() constructor.

handle_request() is not a user method, but rather is called from the
HTML::Mason::handler() routine in handler.pl.

=head1 PARAMETERS TO THE new() CONTRUCTOR

=over

=item apache_status_title

Title that you want this ApacheHandler to appear as under
Apache::Status.  Default is "HTML::Mason status".  This is useful if
you create more then one ApacheHandler object and want them all
visible via Apache::Status.

=item auto_send_headers

True or undef; default true.  Indicates whether Mason should
automatically send HTTP headers before sending content back to the
client. If you set to false, you should call $r->send_http_header
manually.

See the Devel/sending_http_headers of the Component Developer's
Guide for details about the automatic header feature.

=item debug_handler_proc, debug_handler_script, debug_mode, debug_perl_binary

The B<debug_*> parameters control Mason's use of debug files.
Component Admin/debugging procedures are fully described in the I<Mason
Administrator's Guide>.

=item error_mode

Specifies one of two ways to handle Perl errors, 'fatal' or 'html'.
In fatal mode the handler simply dies with the error message. This
may be caught with an eval around C<$ah-E<gt>handle_request> or left
for Apache to handle (generally with a return status of 500).  In
HTML mode the handler sends a readable HTML version of the error
message to the client. HTML mode is most useful in combination with
batch output mode for debugging.

=item output_mode

This parameter has been replaced by the equivalent Interp parameter
Interp/out_mode. For backward compatibility, setting
C<$ah-E<gt>output_mode> will cause C<$interp-E<gt>out_mode> to be set
appropriately.

=item top_level_predicate

Reference to a subroutine that decides whether a component can answer
top level requests. This allows for private-use components that live
within the DocumentRoot but are inaccesible from URLs. By default,
always returns 1.

The subroutine receives one parameter, the absolute path to the
component.  It then returns either a true (serve component) or false
(reject component). In this example, the predicate rejects requests
for components whose name starts with an "_" character:

    top_level_predicate => sub { $_[0] !~ m{/_[^/]+$}

=back

=head1 ACCESSOR METHODS

All of the above properties have standard accessor methods of the
same name: no arguments retrieves the value, and one argument sets it.
For example:

    my $ah = new HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler;
    my $errmode = $ah->error_mode;
    $ah->error_mode('html');

=head1 AUTHOR

Jonathan Swartz, swartz@transbay.net

=head1 SEE ALSO

HTML::Mason,
HTML::Mason::Parser,
HTML::Mason::Interp,
HTML::Mason::Admin

=cut
