Rails core - Aug 2009 - First request after environment load always has an empty body (2.3.3)

After you restart a Mongrel server the first request will always fail
to have the correct HTTP request body.  The reason for this is the
override of CGI#initialize_query method by ActionController in the
cgi_ext/query_extension.rb file.

Specifically, the overridden function does not read from the IO stream
representing the request body, while the original method does.  This
means the original method leaves the read pointer at the end of the
buffer, so any subsequent reads return nothing.

The problem arrises on server restart because loading the Rails
environment doesn''t preload the cgi_ext.rb or cgi_ext/*.rb files by
default.  The query_extension.rb file doesn''t load until after the
first request body has been processed, so for that first request the
original method gets invoked, and the request appears to have no body.

This isn''t generally a problem for web sites, since the first request
is nearly invariably a GET request with an empty body (for the
homepage).  However, for a web service, if the first request after a
server restart or environment reload is a POST or PUT, then that
request will fail, and fail messily.  Similarly, a web site with
several Mongrels could easily GET from one, and then POST to another,
newly restarted, Mongrel.

I realize everything CGI has been deprecated, which is why I haven''t
provided a patch, but I don''t really know how long this could be a
problem.  I''m curious to hear if this won''t be a problem going
forward
(i.e. as of 2.3.4), or if it should be patched.  Finding the problem
was a challenge, but the solution is easy: just require
action_controller/cgi_ext.rb when ActionController loads.

I created a ticket at
https://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994/tickets/2993-first-request-will-always-have-an-empty-body-due-to-delayed-load-of-action_controllercgi_process