home     documentation     download

Like the request module, the response module is also loaded implicitly into every Spyce environment. It provides the following methods:

• write( string ):
  Sends a string to the client. All writes are buffered by default and sent at the end of Spyce processing to allow appending headers, setting cookies and exception handling. Note that using the print statement is often easier, and stdout is implicitly redirected to the browser.
• writeln( string ):
  Sends a string to the client, and appends a newline.
• writeStatic( string ):
  All static HTML strings are emitted to the client via this method, which (by default) simply calls write(). This method is not commonly invoked by the user.
• writeExpr( object ):
  All expression results are emitted to the client via this method, which (by default) calls write() with the str() of the result object. This method is not commonly invoked by the user.
• clear( ): Clears the output buffer.
• flush( ): Sends buffered output to the client immediately. This is a blocking call, and can incur a performance hit.
• setContentType( contentType ):
  Sets the MIME content type of the response.
• setReturnCode( code ):
  Set the HTTP return code for this response. This return code may be overriden if an error occurs or by functions in other modules (such as redirects).
• addHeader( type, data, [replace] ):
  Adds the header line "type: data" to the outgoing response. The optional replace flag determines whether any previous headers of the same type are first removed.
• unbuffer():
  Turns off buffering on the output stream. In other words, each write is followed by a flush(). An unbuffered output stream should be used only when sending large amounts of data (ie. file transfers) that would take up server memory unnecessarily, and involve consistently large writes. Note that using an unbuffered response stream will not allow the output to be cleared if an exception occurs. It will also immediately send any headers.
• isCancelled():
  Returns true if it has been detected that the client is no longer connected. This flag will turn on, and remain on, after the first client output failure. However, the detection is best-effort, and may never turn on in certain configurations (such as CGI) due to buffering.
• timestamp( [t] ):
  Timestamps the response with an HTTP Date: header, using the optional t parameter, which may be either be the number of seconds since the epoch (see Python time module), or a properly formatted HTTP date string. If t is omitted, the current time is used.
• expires( [t] ):
  Sets the expiration time of the response with an HTTP Expires: header, using the optional t parameter, which may be either the number of seconds since the epoch (see Python time module), or a properly formatted HTTP date string. If t is omitted, the current time is used.
• expiresRel( [secs] ):
  Sets the expiration time of the response relative to the current time with an HTTP Expires: header. The optional secs (which may also be negative) indicates the number of seconds to add to the current time to compute the expiration time. If secs is omitted, it defaults to zero.
• lastModified( [t] ):
  Sets the last modification time of the response with an HTTP Last-Modified: header, using the optional t parameter, which can be either the number of seconds since the epoch (see Python time module), or a properly formatted HTTP date string, or None indicating the current time. If t is omitted, this function will default to the last modification time of the Spyce file for this request, and raise an exception if this time can not be determined. Note that, as per the HTTP specification, you should not set a last modification time that is beyond the response timestamp.
• uncacheable():
  Sets the HTTP/1.1 Cache-Control: and HTTP/1.0 Pragma: headers to inform clients and proxies that this content should not be cached.

[[.import name=include ]]
[[\
  # Spyce can also generate other content types
  # The following code displays the Spyce logo
  response.setContentType('image/gif')
  import os.path, spyce
  path = os.path.join(spyce.getServer().config.SPYCE_HOME, 'www', 'spyce.gif')
  response.write(include.dump(path, 1))
  raise spyceDone
]]