>> * Currently, many request handlers match very liberally. For  
>> example, any request that matches "/admin.*" will be handled by the  
>> admin module, including "/adminlskjdfkljsd". Is this intentional? If  
>> not, shouldn't this be fixed?
> 
> Not intentional AFAIK, should be fixed.

Ok, I'll do that.

>> * Many handlers allow a trailing /, for example "/newticket" and "/ 
>> newticket/". What is the reason for this? Noah has mentioned this  
>> being a convenience for people entering URLs that don't know what  
>> they are doing. Are there any other reasons?
> 
> The problem here is that if you don't allow a trailing slash, you  
> should at least automatically redirect from e.g. /foo/ to /foo (most  
> of the web does this the other way around, but hey).

I think some web servers give a slightly different meaning to each.
/foo/ means "foo" is a directory, and /foo that "foo" is a "file". IIRC
Apache does it that way. But in the era of dynamic web services, this
doesn't make sense anymore, and /foo seems more natural.

> So if we get more strict here, we need to add some kinda of slash- 
> stripping redirector thing.

Ok.

>> Opinions? Which rule should I follow?
> 
> I very much prefer strict. The rule should be not to expose the same  
> resource/representation under multiple different URIs. So even if  
> there are valid convenience features such as allowing both /foo/ and / 
> foo, one needs to redirect (as in 301) to the other.

This makes perfect sense.

> One issue here is that changes in this space may break URIs out there  
> on the web (bookmarks, search indices, links etc). That's something we  
> need to be very careful about: we're not just "breaking" the Trac  
> site, but the sites of all the Trac users out there. :P

Breaking invalid URLs like "/amdinlsdkjflkjsd" should not be a problem.
Breaking e.g. "/timeline/bogus/postfix" might or might not be a problem,
I don't know. The only breakage we really care about is bookmarks and
links, as search indices tend to be rebuilt quite often.

I'll try to do a search for links to Trac sites, and see if any invalid
URLs pop up.

Thanks for your comments.
-- Remy

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Reply via email to