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

- NAME
- SYNOPSIS
- DESCRIPTION
- PARAMETERS TO THE use() DECLARATION
- PARAMETERS TO THE new() CONTRUCTOR
- ACCESSOR METHODS
- AUTHOR
- SEE ALSO

# NAME

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

# SYNOPSIS

        use HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler;

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

# 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.

# PARAMETERS TO THE use() DECLARATION

The following are parameters to pass explicitly when using HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler. The line must precede 'use HTML::Mason' to take effect; otherwise HTML::Mason implicitly imports ApacheHandler with default settings. e.g.

        use HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler (args_method=>'mod_perl');
        use HTML::Mason;

args_method
  Method to use for unpacking GET and POST arguments. The valid options are 'CGI' and 'mod_perl'; these indicate that a CGI.pm or Apache::Request object (respectively) will be created for the purposes of argument handling. These objects are, unfortunately, not yet accessible from components.

  'CGI' is the default and should work on most Perl systems. However, if you have the Apache::Request package (or are inclined to fetch it from CPAN), you might switch to 'mod_perl' for speed and memory efficiency.

  When specifying args_method='CGI', the Mason request object ($m) will have a method called `cgi_object` available. This method returns the CGI object used in the ApacheHandler code.

  When specifying args_method='mod_perl', the `$r` global is upgraded to an Apache::Request object. This object inherits all Apache methods and adds a few of its own, dealing with parameters and file uploads. See Apache::Request manual page for more information.

# PARAMETERS TO THE new() CONTRUCTOR

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.

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

debug_handler_proc, debug_handler_script, debug_mode, debug_perl_binary
  The debug_* parameters control Mason's use of debug files. Component debugging procedures are fully described in the Mason Administrator's Guide.

decline_dirs
  Indicates whether Mason should decline directory requests, leaving Apache to serve up a directory index or a FORBIDDEN error as appropriate. Default is 1. See Allowing directory requests for more information about handling directories with Mason.

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 `$ah->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.

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

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 { $_[0] !~ m{/_[^/]+$}

# 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');

# AUTHOR

Jonathan Swartz, swartz@transbay.net

# SEE ALSO

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