repoze.bfg

repoze.bfg is a Python web application framework. It is inspired by Zope, Pylons, and Django. It uses various Zope-related libraries internally to do much of its work. repoze.bfg uses the WSGI protocol to handle request and responses.

repoze.bfg is developed as part of the Repoze project by Agendaless Consulting and other contributors. It is licensed under a BSD-like license.

“What’s New” Documents

• What’s New In repoze.bfg 1.1
  • Major Feature Additions
  • Minor Miscellaneous Feature Additions
  • Backwards Incompatibilities
  • Deprecations and Behavior Differences
  • Dependency Changes

Narrative documentation

Narrative documentation in chapter form explaining how to use repoze.bfg.

• repoze.bfg Introduction
  • Similarities to Other Frameworks
  • Differences from Other Frameworks
  • Why?
  • It’s Tested
• Installing repoze.bfg
  • Before You Install
  • Installing repoze.bfg on a UNIX System
  • Installing repoze.bfg on a Windows System
  • Installing repoze.bfg on Google App Engine
• Creating a repoze.bfg Project
  • Creating the Project
  • Installing your Newly Created Project for Development
  • Running The Tests For Your Application
  • The Interactive Shell
  • Runnning The Project Application
  • Viewing the Application
  • The Project Structure
  • The MyProject Project
  • The myproject Package
• Startup
  • The Startup Process
• Mapping URLs to Code
  • Differences Between Traversal and URL Dispatch
• Traversal
  • The Model Graph
  • How repoze.bfg Processes a Request Using Traversal
  • NotFound Errors
  • A Traversal Example
  • Traversal-Related Side Effects
  • Unicode and Traversal
• URL Dispatch
  • Concept and Usage
  • The route ZCML Directive
  • The Matchdict
  • Path Pattern Syntax
  • <route> Statement Examples
  • Catching the Root URL
  • Generating Route URLs
  • Redirecting to Slash-Appended Routes
  • Cleaning Up After a Request
  • Using repoze.bfg Security With URL Dispatch
• Views
  • Defining a View as a Function
  • Defining a View as a Class
  • Request-Only View Definitions
  • Arguments Passed to a View
  • View Responses
  • Writing Views Which Use a Renderer
  • View Configuration: Mapping Views to URLs
  • View Lookup Ordering
  • Using Model Interfaces
  • Built-In Renderers
  • View Security
  • Using a View to Do A HTTP Redirect
  • Serving Static Resources Using a ZCML Directive
  • Serving Static Resources Using a View
  • Using Views to Handle Form Submissions (Unicode and Character Set Issues)
  • Custom View Request Types
  • Varying Attributes of Rendered Responses
  • Adding and Overriding Renderers
• Request and Response Objects
  • Request
  • Response
• Templates
  • Templating With Chameleon ZPT Page Templates
  • Templating with Chameleon Text Templates
  • Side Effects of Rendering a Chameleon Template
  • Automatically Reloading Templates
  • Chameleon Template Internationalization
  • Templating with other Templating Languages
  • Available Add-On Template System Bindings
• Models
  • Defining a Model Constructor
  • Model Instances Which Implement Interfaces
  • Defining a Graph of Model Instances for Traversal
  • Location-Aware Model Instances
  • repoze.bfg API Functions That Act Against Models
• Security
  • Enabling an Authorization Policy
  • Protecting Views with Permissions
  • Assigning ACLs to your Model Objects
  • Elements of an ACL
  • Special Principal Names
  • Special Permissions
  • Special ACEs
  • ACL Inheritance
  • Location-Awareness
  • Changing the Forbidden View
  • Debugging View Authorization Failures
  • Debugging Imperative Authorization Failures
  • Built-In Authentication Policy Directives
  • Built-In Authorization Policy Directives
  • Creating Your Own Authentication Policy
  • Creating Your Own Authorization Policy
• Combining Traversal and URL Dispatch
  • The Schism
  • Hybrid Applications
  • Route Factories
  • Using *subpath in a Route Path
  • Corner Cases
• Virtual Hosting
  • Hosting an Application Under a URL Prefix
  • Virtual Root Support
  • Further Documentation and Examples
• Using Events
  • Using An Event to Vary the Request Type
• Environment and Configuration
  • Examples
  • Understanding the Distinction Between reload_templates and reload_resources
• Unit and Integration Testing
  • Using the repoze.bfg.testing API in Unit Tests
  • Creating Integration Tests
• Using ZCML Hooks
  • Changing the Not Found View
  • Changing the Forbidden View
  • Changing the response factory
  • Changing the Traverser
  • Changing How repoze.bfg.url.model_url Generates a URL
• Extending An Existing repoze.bfg Application
  • Rules for Building An Extensible Application
  • Extending an Existing Application
  • Dealing With ZCML Inclusions
• Resources
  • Understanding Resources
  • Overriding Resources
  • The resource ZCML Directive
• How repoze.bfg Processes A Request
• Glossary

API documentation

Per-module repoze.bfg API documentation.

• repoze.bfg.chameleon_text
• repoze.bfg.chameleon_zpt
• repoze.bfg.events
• repoze.bfg.exceptions
• repoze.bfg.location
• repoze.bfg.paster
• repoze.bfg.router
• repoze.bfg.scripting
• repoze.bfg.security
  • Authentication API Functions
  • Authorization API Functions
  • Constants
  • Return Values
• repoze.bfg.settings
• repoze.bfg.testing
• repoze.bfg.traversal
• repoze.bfg.url
• repoze.bfg.view
• repoze.bfg.wsgi

Tutorials

ZODB + traversal Wiki tutorial, demonstrating how to build a traversal based application using ZODB and authentication. Good for people with prior Zope experience (or no experience at all).

• ZODB + Traversal Wiki Tutorial
  • Background
  • Installation
  • Basic Layout
  • Defining Models
  • Defining Views
  • Using View Decorators Rather than ZCML view directives
  • Adding Authorization
  • Distributing Your Application

SQLAlchemy + url dispatch Wiki tutorial, demonstrating how to build a url dispatch based application using SQLAlchemy and authentication. Good for people with prior Pylons experience (or no experience at all).

• SQLAlchemy + URL Dispatch Wiki Tutorial
  • Background
  • Installation
  • Basic Layout
  • Defining Models
  • Defining Views
  • Adding Authorization
  • Distributing Your Application

repoze.bfg for Zope CMF Developers

• Converting an Existing Zope/CMF Application to repoze.bfg
  • Content Types
  • Catalog
  • Skins
  • Actions
  • Workflow
  • Missing Comparisons

repoze.bfg on Google’s App Engine

• Running repoze.bfg on Google’s App Engine
  • Zipping Files Via Pip

repoze.bfg under mod_wsgi

• Running a repoze.bfg Application under mod_wsgi

Using ZODB’s ZEO with repoze.bfg

• Using ZODB with ZEO
  • Installing Dependencies
  • Configuration
  • Running

Using ZODB Sessions in repoze.bfg

• Using ZODB-Based Sessions
  • Installing Dependencies
  • Configuration

Detailed Change History

• repoze.bfg Change History

Design Documentation

• Defending BFG’s Design

Sample Applications

repoze.cluegun is a simple pastebin application based on Rocky Burt’s ClueBin. It demonstrates form processing, security, and the use of ZODB within a repoze.bfg application. It also has very simple repoze.who integration. Check this application out of Subversion via:

svn co http://svn.repoze.org/repoze.cluegun/trunk repoze.cluegun

repoze.virginia is a very simple dynamic file rendering application. It is willing to render structured text documents, HTML documents, and images from a filesystem directory. This application runs the repoze.org website. Check this application out of Subversion via:

svn co http://svn.repoze.org/repoze.virginia/trunk repoze.virginia

repoze.shootout is an example “idea competition” application by Carlos de la Guardia. It demonstrates a hybrid of URL dispatch and traversal and integration with SQLAlchemy and repoze.who. Check this application out of Subversion via:

svn co http://svn.repoze.org/repoze.shootout/trunk repoze.shootout

bfgsite is the software which runs the bfg.repoze.org website. It demonstrates integration with Trac, and includes several mini-applications such as a pastebin and tutorial engine. Check a buildout for this application out of Subversion via:

svn co http://svn.repoze.org/buildouts/bfgsite/ bfgsite_buildout

KARL is a moderately-sized application (roughly 70K lines of Python code) built on top of repoze.bfg and other Repoze software. It is an open source web system for collaboration, organizational intranets, and knowledge management, It provides facilities for wikis, calendars, manuals, searching, tagging, commenting, and file uploads. See the KARL site for download and installation details.

Support and Development

The BFG web site is the main online source of repoze.bfg support and development information.

To report bugs, use the bug tracker.

If you’ve got questions that aren’t answered by this documentation, contact the Repoze-dev maillist or join the #repoze IRC channel.

Browse and check out tagged and trunk versions of repoze.bfg via the Repoze Subversion repository. To check out the trunk via Subversion, use this command:

svn co http://svn.repoze.org/repoze.bfg/trunk repoze.bfg

To find out how to become a contributor to repoze.bfg, please see the contributor’s page.

Indices and tables

• Index
• Module Index
• Search Page
• Glossary