Z Handler

 
 This handler allows one to use the Z Object Publisher (formerly Bobo) with
 mod_python. This gives you the power of Zope Object Publishing along with the
 speed of mod_python. It doesn't get any better than this!

 WHAT IS ZPublisher?

 ZPublisher is a component of Zope. While I don't profess at Zope itself as it
 seems to be designed for different type of users than me, I do think that the
 ZPublisher provides an ingeniously simple way of writing WWW applications in
 Python.

 A quick example do demonstrate the power of ZPublisher.

 Suppose you had a file called zhello.py like this:

    """A simple Bobo application"""

    def sayHello( name = "World" ):
        """ Sais Hello  (this comment is required)"""
        return "Hello %s!" % name

.Notice it has one method defined in it. Through ZPublisher, that method can be 
 invoked through the web via a URL similar to this: 

 http://www.domain.tld/site/zhello/sayHello and
 http://www.domain.tld/site/zhello/sayHello?name=Joe

 Note how the query keyword "name" converted to a keyword argument to the function.

 If the above didn't "click" for you, go read the ZPublisher documentation at
 http://classic.zope.org:8080/Documentation/Reference/ObjectPublishingIntro
 for a more in-depth explanation.

 QUICK START

 1. Download and install Zope. 
 2. Don't start it. You're only interested in ZPublisher, and in order for
    it to work, Zope doesn't need to be running.
 3. Pick a www directory where you want to use ZPublisher. For our purposes
    let's imagine it is accessible via http://www.domain.tld/site. 
 4. Make sure that the FollowSymLinks option is on for this directory 
    in httpd.conf.
 5. Make a symlink in this directory to the ZPublisher directory:
    cd site
    ln -s /usr/local/src/Zope-2.1.0-src/lib/python/ZPublisher .
 5. Verify that it is correct:
    ls -l
    lrwxr-xr-x  1 uid group    53 Dec 13 12:15 ZPublisher -> /usr/local/src/Zope-2.1.0-src/lib/python/ZPublisher
 6. Create an .htaccess file with this in it:
      SetHandler python-program
      PythonHandler mod_python.zhandler
      PythonDebug
 7. Create an above mentioned zhello.py file.
 8. Look at http://www.domain.tld/site/zhello/sayHello?name=Joe

 Noteworthy:
 
 This module automatically reloads modules just like any other mod_python
 module. But modules that are imported by your code will not get reloaded. 
 There are ways around having to restart the server for script changes to 
 take effect. For example, let's say you have a module called mycustomlib.py 
 and you have a module that imports it. If you make a changes to 
 mycustomlib.py, you can force the changes to take effect by requesting
 http://www.domain.tld/site/mycustomlib/.  You will get a server error, but
 mycustomelib should get reloaded.
 
 P.S.: ZPublisher is not Zope, but only part of it. As of right now, as far
 as I know, Zope will not work with mod_python. This is because of locking 
 issues. Older versions of Zope had no locking, so different children of 
 apache would corrupt the database by trying to access it at the same time. 
 Starting with version 2 Zope does have locking, however, it seems that the 
 first child locks the database without ever releasing it and after that no 
 other process can access it.

 If this is incorrect, and you can manage to get Zope to work without problems,
 please send me an e-mail and I will correct this documentation.