Glossary¶

application registry: A registry of configuration information consulted by Pyramid while servicing an application. An application registry maps resource types to views, as well as housing other application-specific component registrations. Every Pyramid application has one (and only one) application registry.
asset: Any file contained within a Python package which is not a Python source code file.
asset specification: A colon-delimited identifier for an asset. The colon separates a Python package name from a package subpath. For example, the asset specification my.package:static/baz.css identifies the file named baz.css in the static subdirectory of the my.package Python package. See asset_specifications for more info.
asset specification: A colon-delimited identifier for an asset. The colon separates a Python package name from a package subpath. For example, the asset specification my.package:static/baz.css identifies the file named baz.css in the static subdirectory of the my.package Python package. See asset_specifications for more info.
configuration declaration: An individual method call made to an instance of a Pyramid Configurator object which performs an arbitrary action, such as registering a view configuration (via the add_view method of the configurator) or route configuration (via the add_route method of the configurator).
configuration decoration: Metadata implying one or more configuration declaration invocations. Often set by configuration Python decorator attributes, such as pyramid.view.view_config, aka @view_config.
configurator: An object used to do configuration declaration within an application. The most common configurator is an instance of the pyramid.config.Configurator class.
decorator: A wrapper around a Python function or class which accepts the function or class as its first argument and which returns an arbitrary object. Pyramid provides several decorators, used for configuration and return value modification purposes. See also PEP 318.
dotted Python name: A reference to a Python object by name using a string, in the form path.to.modulename:attributename. Often used in Paste and setuptools configurations. A variant is used in dotted names within configurator method arguments that name objects (such as the “add_view” method’s “view” and “context” attributes): the colon (:) is not used; in its place is a dot.
imperative configuration: The configuration mode in which you use Python to call methods on a Configurator in order to add each configuration declaration required by your application.
module: A Python source file; a file on the filesystem that typically ends with the extension .py or .pyc. Modules often live in a package.
package: A directory on disk which contains an __init__.py file, making it recognizable to Python as a location which can be import -ed. A package exists to contain module files.
Pylons: A lightweight Python web framework.
Pyramid: A web framework.
request: A WebOb request object. See webob_chapter (narrative) and request_module (API documentation) for information about request objects.
root factory: The “root factory” of an Pyramid application is called on every request sent to the application. The root factory returns the traversal root of an application. It is conventionally named get_root. An application may supply a root factory to Pyramid during the construction of a Configurator. If a root factory is not supplied, the application uses a default root object. Use of the default root object is useful in application which use URL dispatch for all URL-to-view code mappings.
route: A single pattern matched by the url dispatch subsystem, which generally resolves to one or more view callable objects. See also url dispatch.
route configuration: Route configuration is the act of using imperative configuration or a ZCML <route> statement to associate request parameters with a particular route using pattern matching and route predicate statements. See urldispatch_chapter for more information about route configuration.
route predicate: An argument to a route configuration which implies a value that evaluates to True or False for a given request. All predicates attached to a route configuration must evaluate to True for the associated route to “match” the current request. If a route does not match the current request, the next route (in definition order) is attempted.
router: The WSGI application created when you start a Pyramid application. The router intercepts requests, invokes traversal and/or URL dispatch, calls view functions, and returns responses to the WSGI server on behalf of your Pyramid application.
scan: The term used by Pyramid to define the process of importing and examining all code in a Python package or module for configuration decoration.
traversal: The act of descending “up” a tree of resource objects from a root resource in order to find a context resource. The Pyramid router performs traversal of resource objects when a root factory is specified. See the traversal_chapter chapter for more information. Traversal can be performed instead of URL dispatch or can be combined with URL dispatch. See hybrid_chapter for more information about combining traversal and URL dispatch (advanced).
URL dispatch: An alternative to traversal as a mechanism for locating a a view callable. When you use a route in your Pyramid application via a route configuration, you are using URL dispatch. See the urldispatch_chapter for more information.
view: Common vernacular for a view callable.
view callable: A “view callable” is a callable Python object which is associated with a view configuration; it returns a response object . A view callable accepts a single argument: request, which will be an instance of a request object. A view callable is the primary mechanism by which a developer writes user interface code within Pyramid. See views_chapter for more information about Pyramid view callables.
view configuration: View configuration is the act of associating a view callable with configuration information. This configuration information helps map a given request to a particular view callable and it can influence the response of a view callable. Pyramid views can be configured via imperative configuration, ZCML or by a special @view_config decorator coupled with a scan. See view_config_chapter for more information about view configuration.
View handler: A view handler ties together pyramid.config.Configurator.add_route() and pyramid.config.Configurator.add_view() to make it more convenient to register a collection of views as a single class when using url dispatch. See also views_chapter.
view predicate: An argument to a view configuration which evaluates to True or False for a given request. All predicates attached to a view configuration must evaluate to true for the associated view to be considered as a possible callable for a given request.
WSGI: Web Server Gateway Interface. This is a Python standard for connecting web applications to web servers, similar to the concept of Java Servlets. Pyramid requires that your application be served as a WSGI application.
ZCML: Zope Configuration Markup Language, an XML dialect used by Zope and Pyramid for configuration tasks. ZCML is capable of performing different types of configuration declaration, but its primary purpose in Pyramid is to perform view configuration and route configuration within the configure.zcml file in a Pyramid application. You can use ZCML as an alternative to imperative configuration.
ZCML declaration: The concrete use of a ZCML directive within a ZCML file.
ZCML directive: A ZCML “tag” such as <view>, <route>, or <handler>.