Re: What does this URL mean?
Here's a page which explains how URLs are made up: http://hybridchill.com/anatomy-of-a-url.html And here's how your URL divides: Protocol = http Server = //localhost Script Name = /students/index.cfm Path Info = /register Query String = action=studentreg It's possible (but unlikely) that students is a context not part of the script name. It's also possible (but even more unlikely) that index.cfm is a directory name and register is the script. If you're running the code yourself, you can open up index.cfm and do... cfdump var=#cgi# /cfabort/ ...and you'll see the various variables including those mentioned in the page above. Especially in the past, a lot of things used the Query String (which starts after the first ?) for things which *should* have used Path Info - mostly because Path Info was neither properly understood nor implemented in many servers, and server-side languages didn't make it as easy to work with as with query string. Path Info was designed for identifying which file to display (different to which script to process with), whilst Query String was intended for querying (searching) in some way. Because it was easier, nearly everyone lumped everything into the query string. There is no default format or imposed use to Path Info, so it is entirely a case of how the developer implemented it. It's possible it could be used for an application name, but I've never seen that done. It's likely to be the name of a page or section, which may or not be stored in a database. I've not encountered any CMS that constructs URLs in the way of your URL. Due to the intended purpose of the Query String, early search engines initially ignored everything after a ? when spidering URLs, but when Google arrived on the scene, it wasn't long before they had started working out which variables in a query string identified pages. At some point, a fad started of moving ALL variables (including ones which *should* stay in the query string) into the Path Info section, and claiming this was search engine friendly or search engine safe. (I'll try to avoid ranting on how stupid both these terms and practise is.) Mostly outside the CF community, people were already achieving the same thing using URL rewriting (using Apache mod_rewrite, IIS ISAPI rewrite, or similar), which treats everything after the Server before the Query String as a single virtual path, converted into a script name and (potentially) query string variables - which meant there was no need for index.ext to be used. This is generally called things like pretty URLs, vanity URLs, or similar terms - which more accurately reflect that they are (should be) done for HUMAN benefit (not search engines). That's starting to drify off the original topic though, so I'll stop now... I think I've covered everything, and hopefully this all makes sense? Let me know if anything I've written is unclear? ~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:343639 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
What does this URL mean?
http://localhost/students/index.cfm/register?action=studentreg I did not understand the use of 'register' after index.cfm. Can anyone please help me understand what it could mean? There is a index.cfm file in students folder. Could register be a folder name? ~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:343634 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
Re: What does this URL mean?
There is probably a parameter format being used there. Register might be the name of the application being used here On Apr 9, 2011 7:37 PM, fun and learning funandlrnn...@gmail.com wrote: http://localhost/students/index.cfm/register?action=studentreg I did not understand the use of 'register' after index.cfm. Can anyone please help me understand what it could mean? There is a index.cfm file in students folder. Could register be a folder name? ~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:343635 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
RE: What does this URL mean?
It is probably the name of the page which is stored as a database record and the url is being constructed through a content management system (CMS) query. Wilfred A. Sessoms Sr. http://www.nytechcentral.com -Original Message- From: fun and learning [mailto:funandlrnn...@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2011 8:29 PM To: cf-talk Subject: What does this URL mean? http://localhost/students/index.cfm/register?action=studentreg I did not understand the use of 'register' after index.cfm. Can anyone please help me understand what it could mean? There is a index.cfm file in students folder. Could register be a folder name? ~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:343636 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
RE: What does this URL mean?
Yeah this type of URL is usually a search engine friendly URL, everything after the index is usually a page to run and the action. Which is the start of SES and ISAPI rewrites. Regards, Andrew Scott http://www.andyscott.id.au/ -Original Message- From: Wilfred Sessoms [mailto:wsess...@firstchoiceimages.com] Sent: Sunday, 10 April 2011 12:00 PM To: cf-talk Subject: RE: What does this URL mean? It is probably the name of the page which is stored as a database record and the url is being constructed through a content management system (CMS) query. Wilfred A. Sessoms Sr. http://www.nytechcentral.com ~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:343637 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
Re: What does this URL mean?
http://localhost/students/index.cfm/register?action=studentreg I did not understand the use of 'register' after index.cfm. Can anyone please help me understand what it could mean? There is a index.cfm file in students folder. Could register be a folder name? While normally you can guess that you have, for example, a file named index.cfm, you shouldn't therefore assume that all URLs happen to map to a specific file in a known location on the filesystem and that there is a clear mapping of what you see in the URL with specific filename and query parameters. URLs can really be quite a bit different than that. In this case, index.cfm could be a file or a directory, or neither. register could be a file name, a value mapped to a URL parameter within index.cfm, or something else entirely. My guess - and it can be no more than a guess - is that there's a file called index.cfm in a directory called students, and that this file is looking at the raw query string and grabbing the first value to get the literal string register, and that there's a URL parameter available within the page called action with a value of studentreg. Why someone would bother doing that, I can't really say. Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software http://www.figleaf.com/ http://training.figleaf.com/ Fig Leaf Software is a Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB) on GSA Schedule, and provides the highest caliber vendor-authorized instruction at our training centers, online, or onsite. ~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:343638 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
