The Request.headers dict is now guaranteed to contain native strings (bytes or unicode) based on

the running python version. If the WSGI environment contains non-native strings, these are
de- or encoded using 'utf8' (default) or 'latin1' (fallback). This API will remain stable even
on WSGI spec changes, if possible. If you need the unmodified value, call Request.headers.raw(key).

3 files changed, 58 insertions, 11 deletions

diff --git a/apidoc/api.rst b/apidoc/api.rst
index d3db5c9..74cb092 100755
--- a/apidoc/api.rst
+++ b/apidoc/api.rst
@@ -83,7 +83,10 @@ Data Structures
 
 .. autoclass:: HeaderDict
    :members:
-   
+
+.. autoclass:: WSGIHeaderDict
+   :members:
+
 .. autoclass:: AppStack
    :members:
 
diff --git a/apidoc/changelog.rst b/apidoc/changelog.rst
index 1b2b561..23a35a3 100755
--- a/apidoc/changelog.rst
+++ b/apidoc/changelog.rst
@@ -15,6 +15,11 @@ This changes are not released yet and are only part of the development documenta
 
 * A new hook-API to inject code immediately before or after the execution of handler callbacks.
 * The :meth:`Bottle.route` decorator got a lot of new features. See API documentation for details.
+* The :attr:`Request.headers` dict is now guaranteed to contain native strings but still allows access to the raw data provided by the WSGI environment (see :class:`WSGIHeaderDict`).
+
+.. rubric:: API changes 
+
+* :attr:`Request.header` is now :attr:`Request.headers`
 
 
 Bugfix Release 0.8.3
diff --git a/bottle.py b/bottle.py
index c34d1ab..c999b82 100755
--- a/bottle.py
+++ b/bottle.py
@@ -796,16 +796,14 @@ class Request(threading.local, DictMixin):
 
     @property
     def header(self):
-        ''' :class:`HeaderDict` filled with request headers.
+        depr("The Request.header property was renamed to Request.headers")
+        return self.headers
 
-            HeaderDict keys are case insensitive str.title()d 
-        '''
+    @property
+    def headers(self):
+        ''' :class:`WSGIHeaderDict` filled with request headers. '''
         if 'bottle.headers' not in self.environ:
-            header = self.environ['bottle.headers'] = HeaderDict()
-            for key, value in self.environ.iteritems():
-                if key.startswith('HTTP_'):
-                    key = key[5:].replace('_','-').title()
-                    header[key] = value
+            self.environ['bottle.headers'] = WSGIHeaderDict(self.environ)
         return self.environ['bottle.headers']
 
     @property
@@ -905,7 +903,7 @@ class Request(threading.local, DictMixin):
             This implementation currently only supports basic auth and returns
             None on errors.
         """
-        return parse_auth(self.environ.get('HTTP_AUTHORIZATION',''))
+        return parse_auth(self.headers.get('Autorization',''))
 
     @property
     def COOKIES(self):
@@ -915,7 +913,7 @@ class Request(threading.local, DictMixin):
             Request.get_cookie() for details.
         """
         if 'bottle.cookies' not in self.environ:
-            raw_dict = SimpleCookie(self.environ.get('HTTP_COOKIE',''))
+            raw_dict = SimpleCookie(self.headers.get('Cookie',''))
             self.environ['bottle.cookies'] = {}
             for cookie in raw_dict.itervalues():
                 self.environ['bottle.cookies'][cookie.key] = cookie.value
@@ -1078,6 +1076,47 @@ class HeaderDict(MultiDict):
     def httpkey(self, key): return str(key).replace('_','-').title()
 
 
+
+class WSGIHeaderDict(DictMixin):
+    ''' This dict-like class takes a WSGI environ dict and provides convenient
+        access to HTTP_* fields. Keys and values are stored as native strings
+        (bytes/unicode) based on the python version used (2/3) and keys are
+        case-insensistive. If the WSGI environment contains non-native strings,
+        these are de- or encoded using 'utf8' (default) or 'latin1' (fallback)
+        charset. To get the original value, use the .raw(key) method.
+
+        This is not a MultiDict because incoming headers are unique. The API
+        will remain stable even on WSGI spec changes, if possible.
+        '''
+
+    def __init__(self, environ):
+        self.cache = {}
+        self.environ = environ
+        for key, value in self.environ.iteritems():
+            key = tonat(key, 'latin1') # Headers are limited to ASCII anyway
+            if key.startswith('HTTP_'):
+                self[key[5:].replace('_','-')] = value
+
+    def __len__(self): return len(self.cache)
+    def keys(self): return self.cache.keys()
+    def __iter__(self): return iter(self.cache)
+    def __contains__(self, key): return key.title() in self.keys()
+    def __delitem__(self, key): del self.cache[key.title()]
+    def __getitem__(self, key): return self.cache[key.title()]
+    def __setitem__(self, key, value):
+        try:
+            self.cache[key.title()] = tonat(value, 'utf8')
+        except UnicodeError:
+            self.cache[key.title()] = tonat(value, 'latin1')
+
+    def raw(self, key, default=None):
+        ''' Return the raw WSGI header value for that key. '''
+        ekey = 'HTTP_%s' % key.replace('-','_').upper()
+        return self.environ.get(ekey, default)
+
+
+
+
 class AppStack(list):
     """ A stack implementation. """