I sort of think your two options would be great, if I knew how to do either (they might just be my question).

I'm not sure what minimal code I can give you. Hows about:

package Mason::MyDynHandler;

sub handler 
{
    my($r) = @_;
    
    my $output = "%print STDERR $m->session\n alert("foo");"; 

    my $mi = HTML::Mason::Interp->new(
        #request_class => 'MasonX::Request::WithApacheSession'
    );
    my $c = $mi->make_component(comp_source => $output);
    $realOutput = $mi->exec($c);
    
    print $realOutput; 
    
    return OK;
    
}
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In the above example, I have a $r which is an Apache request. If I include the line "request_class => ...", I will be missing an 'ah' (which I assume is some ApacheHandler class, possibly HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler). If I make an HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler and try to prepare_request, it looks for the path in the request '/somepath/foo.dynjs', which doesn't exist. I would love to know how to use the "existing" interp in this context.

I don't necessarily want to do it this way, I'm just not sure how else to do it (and this doesn't work anyway).

I am configured something like:

<FilesMatch "\.dynjs$">
        PerlSetVar Filter On
        SetHandler perl-script
        PerlHandler Mason::MyDynHandler
        PerlSetVar  MasonRequestClass            MasonX::Request::With
+ApacheSession
        PerlSetVar  MasonSessionClass            Apache::Session::File
</FilesMatch>
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I don't know if this clarified anything in my question.

Try making your handler a HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler subclass, as in

use parent qw/ HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler /;
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Good idea...I like it...

But, I'm not familiar with "use parent", and apparently neither is my server (this server is on Perl 5.8.8). I also tried "use base" and a plain old ISA on it, but they didn't work either--although they errored in a different way. :)

package Mason::MyDynHandler;

our @ISA = qw(HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler);

use HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler;

sub handler
{
    my($r) = @_;
    
    my $output = '% print STDERR "$m->session\n"; \n alert("foo");'; 
    my $ah = HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler->handler($r);
    my $mi = $ah->interp;

    my $c = $mi->make_component(comp_source => $output);
    my $realOutput = $mi->exec($c);
    
    print $realOutput; 
    
    return OK;    
    
}
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With errors:

[Thu Feb  9 17:28:39 2012] [error] [Mason] File does not exist: /somep
+ath/foo.dynjs
[Thu Feb  9 17:28:39 2012] [error] Can't call method "interp" without 
+a package or object reference at ../Mason/MyDynHandler.pm line 43.\n
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the file does not exist is because foo.dynjs is still a virtual file. And line 43 is "my $mi = $ah->interp;". I can move the problem by replacing $mi with $ah, but it isn't set up correctly, clearly.