But there are situations where you might need to access the `Request` object directly.

## Details about the `Request` object

As **FastAPI** is actually **Starlette** underneath, with a layer of several tools on top, you can use Starlette's <a href="https://www.starlette.io/requests/" class="external-link" target="_blank">`Request`</a> object directly when you need to.

## HTTPX

Even if your **FastAPI** application uses normal `def` functions instead of `async def`, it is still an `async` application underneath.

In the chapters about security, there are utility functions that are implemented in this same way.

If you understood all this, you already know how those utility tools for security work underneath.

And of course, it supports the same:

* data validation
* data serialization
* data documentation, etc.

This works the same way as with Pydantic models. And it is actually achieved in the same way underneath, using Pydantic.

/// info

Keep in mind that dataclasses can't do everything Pydantic models can do.

So, you might still need to use Pydantic models.

Because of that, it's now recommended to instead use the `lifespan` as explained above.

## Technical Details

Just a technical detail for the curious nerds. 🤓

Underneath, in the ASGI technical specification, this is part of the <a href="https://asgi.readthedocs.io/en/latest/specs/lifespan.html" class="external-link" target="_blank">Lifespan Protocol</a>, and it defines events called `startup` and `shutdown`.

		}
		return eErr
	}

	if err := target.send(eventData); err != nil {
		return err
	}

	// Delete the event from store.
	return target.store.Del(key)
}

// Close - closes underneath connections to NSQD server.
func (target *NSQTarget) Close() (err error) {
	close(target.quitCh)
	if target.producer != nil {
		// this blocks until complete:
		target.producer.Stop()
	}
	return nil
}

`UploadFile` has the following `async` methods. They all call the corresponding file methods underneath (using the internal `SpooledTemporaryFile`).

* `write(data)`: Writes `data` (`str` or `bytes`) to the file.
* `read(size)`: Reads `size` (`int`) bytes/characters of the file.

		return nil, err
	}

	return &sarama.ProducerMessage{
		Topic: target.args.Topic,
		Key:   sarama.StringEncoder(key),
		Value: sarama.ByteEncoder(data),
	}, nil
}

// Close - closes underneath kafka connection.
func (target *KafkaTarget) Close() error {
	close(target.quitCh)

	if target.batch != nil {
		target.batch.Close()
	}

	if target.producer != nil {
		if target.store != nil {

		if IsConnErr(err) {
			return store.ErrNotConnected
		}
		return err
	}

	// Delete the event from store.
	return target.store.Del(key)
}

// Close - closes underneath connections to PostgreSQL database.
func (target *PostgreSQLTarget) Close() error {
	close(target.quitCh)
	if target.updateStmt != nil {
		// FIXME: log returned error. ignore time being.

### Create Models

Import `SQLModel` and create a database model:

{* ../../docs_src/sql_databases/tutorial001_an_py310.py ln[1:11] hl[7:11] *}

The `Hero` class is very similar to a Pydantic model (in fact, underneath, it actually *is a Pydantic model*).

There are a few differences: