[Zope] REQUEST.form variables order

[Gaute Amundsen]

On Thursday 20 April 2006 12:09, Tino Wildenhain wrote:
> Gaute Amundsen schrieb:
> > On Wednesday 19 April 2006 21:47, Tino Wildenhain wrote:
> >>Gaute Amundsen wrote:
> >>>I want to retrieve the form fields in the order that they where
> >>> submitted
> >>
> >>I'd say blaming zope for not reading the docs is somewhat arrogant .-)
> >
> > I have been reading the docs for thee last 3 years my friend.
> > Could you please specify _which_ docs you are refering to here?
> > And what do they say that has a bearing on this?
>
> For example how to construct sane formulars? ;)
>
Being didactic now eh? ;)
Well, yes, formularor is quite nice for example, 
but this is "someone elses mess", and my job :(

<snip>
> > Hm.. ok.
> > I have these 100 forms, all over the place. They live in user editable
> > html.
>
> Bad concept, but there you are. I bet this isnt the only thing you
> want to change while you go to an application server (like zope).

We have been on zope for years, we just wanted to tighten down the security 
after one rather nasty attack, and formmail.pl was the only cgi on the 
server. 

User editable forms the "right way", now that is another story.
I think I have settled on a "separate forms editor" approach, but that is 
still in the future.

> > To have to track down and alter them all is out of the question.
> > Yet the users expect the form fields to appear in their emails in the
> > order that they put them on the page.
>
> Well now thats interesting. I see to: cc: subject: and body
> elements and their respective form elements. What kind of
> other order should be preserved? Its does not matter in which
> order mime-headers appear (in fact you dont even see that
> in most MUAs)

You missunderstand again I'm afraid. I didn't think I was being that brief..

The order of the form elements that goes into mail headers is ofcourse 
irelevant. I'ts the rest of the form, you know name, adress, street, etc. 
that are the problem. 
It's a purely visual thing, but when you have a form with perhaps 50 fields, 
that the client has carefully grouped and ordered, they can get rather pissed 
if you try to tell them they can only have it in semi-random or alpabetic in 
their mail.

> > You seem to know formmail.pl, so you know that part :)
>
> Not the field ordering part. What other elements exist which
> need to preserve arbitrary ordering? (Beside the effect
> if you have more then one to: oder more then one body
> form element (same name) you get a list with ordering
> preserved obviously.
>
> >>>My best Idea so far, is to use the apache proxying we use anyway, to run
> >>>all requests to this url through a small perl or php proxy, that ads the
> >>>ordering info to the POST.
> >>>
> >>>Does anyone have any better ideas?
> >>
> >>Yes. Give the description of your real problem. With more details please!
> >>Show example form as it is and where exactly your problem is.
> >
> > How to retrieve the field order from the http post request.
>
> No, thats not your problem. Thats the solution you are seeking
> to what you think is your problem :-) Maybe it is maybe not.
> Please show us an example of the situation you are facing.
> I believe there can be a simpler solution to it.
>
> Regards
> Tino Wildenhain

A smiley or two helps, but now I would say you are bordering on arrogant.
What more do I have to explain to convince you that I understand what the 
problem is?

Gaute