Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 16:57:49 -0600
From: John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org>
To: gopher@complete.org
Subject: [gopher] Exciting PyGopherd news
Message-ID: <20030305225749.GA734@wile.excelhustler.com>
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Hello,

Well, it's about time for my feverish Gopher-related activity spurt.

And so, I am introducing virtual filesystem support for PyGopherd.

The first* virtual filesystem to be supported is ZIP files.  This means that
you can serve up part or all of your site from a ZIP file, transparently. 
But it's more than just another handler.  You can store complete gophermap
or UMN-style site info in that ZIP file, and PyGopherd will see it and serve
it up right.  You store and run PYG modules in that ZIP file.  You can even
nest ZIP files!

The core for this support is already checked in to the Subversion repository
at version 214.  It's not working yet, but it's 90% of the way there.  Tests
on the core infrastructure are already passing.

You will be able to use selectors like /archive/myfile.zip/mydir/README. 
You don't even have to use the .zip extension (to make it totally
transparent).

Note that this is a feature that Apache doesn't have yet :-)

* OK, I lied.  The first virtual filesystem is VFS_Real, which maps to the
real filesystem like the existing system.  VFS_ZIP is the second.