[Zope] Cookie Cutter Product

[TFE MMS JARVIS JOHN]

Hi All!

  One of the applications I am working on is a database client with a
bunch of search screens and some fairly dynamic SQL. The search items
themselves are selected from other query results necessitating a
mechanism for data to be saved between HTTP sessions.
  I considered saving the data in a database and sending a cookie ID to
the client which seems to be the norm, but for what I wanted it seemed
like a bit of overkill. Maybe it's not, but anyway... Also, most of
the documents use sets of data that are different for each user and
need to be accessed with each request.
  So, I tried to save everything in cookies. This would eliminate the
need for DB management on the server side and give the documents the
data they need at the expense of slightly higher network traffic (not
much of a problem on my company intranet). Well, I ran out of cookies. 
As you all probably know, the cookie spec calls for a browser to only
handle 20 cookies per server. So, being the type that tends to just
hit things harder when they don't work the way he wants them to, I wrote the

CookieCutter Product.
  The CookieCutter Product manages a dictionary of objects. The
objects are assigned to the dictionary keys, pickled, and added to
REPONSE.cookies. It is unpickled from REQUEST.cookies and, if desired,
the dictionary items are mapped into the REQUEST namespace where they
can be then used as normal attributes. This allows the storage of a
number of arbitrary objects in a single cookie. Cookies have a 4KB
limit so I don't know how far this can go before either the browser or the
user gags but, for what I'm using it for anyway, it works well.

I'm still a bit new at all this so, for all I know, it could be a really
braindead idea.
Is anyone interested?
Comments?

John Jarvis
Tokyo Electron FE, Ltd.