In some cases, you may wish to return a 404 (HTTP_NOT_FOUND) or other non-200 result from your handler. There is a trick here. if you return HTTP_NOT_FOUND from your handler, Apache will handle rendering an error page. This can be problematic if you wish your handler to render it's own error page.
In this case, you need to set req.status = apache.HTTP_NOT_FOUND,
render your page, and then return(apache.OK):
from mod_python import apache
def handler(req):
if req.filename[-17:] == 'apache-error.html':
# make Apache report an error and render the error page
return(apache.HTTP_NOT_FOUND)
if req.filename[-18:] == 'handler-error.html':
# use our own error page
req.status = apache.HTTP_NOT_FOUND
pagebuffer = 'Page not here. Page left, not know where gone.'
else:
# use the contents of a file
pagebuffer = open(req.filename, 'r').read()
# fall through from the latter two above
req.write(pagebuffer)
return(apache.OK)
Note that if wishing to returning an error page from a handler phase other
than the response handler, the value apache.DONE must be returned
instead of apache.OK. If this is not done, subsequent handler phases
will still be run. The value of apache.DONE indicates that processing
of the request should be stopped immediately. If using stacked response
handlers, then apache.DONE should also be returned in that situation
to prevent subsequent handlers registered for that phase being run if
appropriate.