[Zope] - Document modification time

[Amos Latteier]

At 03:36 PM 12/7/98, Kent wrote:
>> I did this, and it doesn't update if I change the index_html document at
>> all.  In fact, it actually seems to have the date/time of the update of
>> standard_html_footer, which isn't terribly useful :-)
>
>Actually, it depends... play with it a bit more and you will see even
>more interesting behavior. :^)  Part of the 'problem' is that it is
>often hard to 'set' or determine what the object is that you are dealing
>with. Is it an object or is it a method? Depends...  If you think this
>is interesting, just you wait. :^) :^) These sorts of issues will help
>determine how you build your site.   

...

>> Am I asking the impossible?  Also, it'd be nice to be able to figure out
>> the last update time on a StructuredText document that was included with
>> <!--#var blah fmt="structured-text"-->.  I'd be happy with a solution
>> that could scan through all the objects included and figure out which
>> one was most recent.

I agree that this is a bit of a problem. When you have Documents calling
Documents its sometimes hard to keep things straight. Acquisition is part
of the confusion, but I don't really think its the issue here.

Basically you have an object docA calling another docB. The docB is told to
execute a method that both it and docA implement. So it calls its own
method. Really you would like to specify that it should call the method on
DocA. This is hard to do, if you just specify the method name.

I propose that there should be something analogous to the PARENTS list for
Documents. Maybe is should be called CALLERS or DOCUMENTS or something. It
should be a list of Documents, so that when index_html calls
standard_html_header which calls mydoc, mydoc should be able do something
like:

<!--#var "CALLERS[-1].bobobase_modification_time()"--> To call a method on
index_html (the first CALLER).

Thoughts?

-Amos

P.S. This facility would make the view dtml source widget on the Zope site
work, as well :-)