URL Theory & Best Practices

[Tony Collen]

Apologies for the extra long post, but this has been bugging me for a while.

First, some background:

I'm attempting to put together a URL space using cocoon that will allow users to drop an XML file into a directory, say $TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/cocoon/documents/ and have it published. This is easy enough:

<map:match pattern="*.html>
<map:generate src="documents/{1}.html"/>
<map:transform src="stylesheets/page2html.xsl"/>
<map:serialize type="xhtml"/>
</map:match>

So then I decide that for organization's sake, I want to allow people to create subdirectories under documents/ any number of levels deep, and still have cocoon publish them. This is also fairly simple:

<map:match pattern="**/*.html">
<map:generate src="documents/{1}.html"/>
<map:transform src="stylesheets/page2html.xsl"/>
<map:serialize type="xhtml"/>
</map:match>

However, later I realize that using file extensions is "bad". Read http://www.alistapart.com/stories/slashforward/ for more info on this idea.
This creates problems with how I automatically generate content using Cocoon. I want to allow people to create content arbitrarily deep in the documents/ directory, but I run into a bunch of questions.

Should trailing slashes always be used? I think so.
Therefore: Consider an HTTP request for "/a/b/c/".

1. Is it a request for the discreet resource named "c" which is contained in "b"?
2. Is it a request for the listing of all the contents of the "c" resource (which is in turn contained within "b")?
3. Is this equivalent to a request for "/a/b/c"? 3b. Should a request for something w/o a trailing slash be redirected to the same URL, but with a trailing slash added?

Using the "best practice" of always having trailing slashes creates problems when mapping the virtual URL space to a physical directory structure. Considering a request for "/a/b/c/", do I go into documents/a/b/c/ and generate from index.xml? Or do I go to documents/a/b/ and generate from c.xml? Having every "leaf" be a directory with an index.xml gets to be unmaintainable, IMO.

Likewise, do I generate from documents/a/b/d.xml or documents/a/b/d/index.xml for a request of "/a/b/d"? Additionally, what should happen when there's a request for "/a/b/"? Obviously, if the subdirectory "b" exists, it would not be correct to go to documents/a/ and look for b.xml.

Part of my reasoning behind all these questions lies in my quest for creating an uber-flexible "drop-in" directory structure where people can simply add their .xml files to the "documents" directory and have Cocoon automagically publish them, as I stated above. The other reason for this is that I'm trying to devise a system which automatically creates navigation, as well. I've looked at the Bonebreaker example, and it's good, but has some limitations. What if I don't want to use the naming scheme they have?

Oh well, thanks for listening to my ramblings, and hopefully I can get some light shed on this situation, as well as have a nifty autonavbar work eventually :)
Regards,
Tony


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