Murray --
The kind of URL scheme you describe is very interesting, and it is
indeed related to this whole discussion on URL construction.
URLConstructor isn't the best name, really, because it actually
understates its role. It also performs URL *parsing*.
My earlier message about URLRewrite relates to this. On the inbound
side, "something" needs to transform the long URL (http://www.acme.org/wiki/pages/PageName/edit/
) into a proper resource path, with parsed and decoded parameters.
URLRewrite does this, as a filter. So does our own WikiServlet filter,
albeit not using the syntax you gave.
For 3.0, my preference has been to use a plain addressing scheme like
the current DefaultURLConstructor. It doesn't require any special
decoding/remapping on the inbound side, and outbound URL construction
is easy. However, an URL scheme like the one you suggested is good
too. In theory, we could use URLRewrite. Janne has also raised
concerns about performance because of its reliance on regular
expressions. I am less concerned about that, and more concerned about
the fact that you need to be able to reference the HTTP response
object (and its encodeURL() method) to make it work.
The other approach would be a new ("better") URL constructor scheme.
Either way, we will continue to need 1) a filter (to remap the
incoming URLs to a proper request format and forward the correct
destination JSP) and 2) some kind of URL construction algorithm.
Andrew
On Jul 7, 2008, at 4:24 PM, Murray Altheim wrote:
One of the things I've been working on (both related and unrelated to
JSPWiki) is a web service URL schema providing read and write access
to the wiki, in particular the wiki's page provider. Without going
into detail about that I thought I might at least mention the idea
of REST-fully regularizing *all* of the URLs used by JSPWiki to a
common approach, i.e. (optional components in square brackets):
baseURL collectionHierarchy [objectId] action ['?' parameters]
e.g.,
http://www.acme.org/wiki/ pages/ PageName/ get/
This would in the future permit a collection hierarchy where 'pages/'
currently exists, with 'PageName' as object ID (oid) potentially
replaced by any kind of identifier (pages may be identified by name
or by some other kind of identifier that survives across renames --
title).
http://www.acme.org/wiki/pages/PageName/get/
http://www.acme.org/wiki/pages/PageName/edit/
http://www.acme.org/wiki/pages/PageName/put/
http://www.acme.org/wiki/pages/search/?q=term
(the actual action names aren't important) or alternately, including
the action name as a parameter:
http://www.acme.org/wiki/pages/PageName/?action=get
http://www.acme.org/wiki/pages/PageName/?action=edit
http://www.acme.org/wiki/pages/PageName/?action=put
http://www.acme.org/wiki/pages/?action=search&q=term
allowing things like:
http://www.acme.org/wiki/pages/PageName/?action=get&format=html
http://www.acme.org/wiki/pages/PageName/?action=get&format=xml
http://www.acme.org/wiki/pages/PageName/?action=get&format=text
etc., with advantages and disadvantages to each.
Has there been any thought amongst other members of the team in
writing
a more REST-ful URL constructor? Perhaps as the default? While I do
understand dealing with legacy issues it'd be nice to just have a
simple,
REST-ful URL that just worked. It's been one of those things I've
never
been able to get working consistently in JSPWiki across all
installations.
I don't have it working yet but I basically have been writing a web
service that would provide complete access to the wiki's functionality
using a schema similar to the above. The question for me is how
difficult it'd be in rewriting the JSPs to generate URLs as according
to the web service instead of the existing setting, which of course
led me to think that the whole web service is really just an
alternative
URL constructor...
Murray
...........................................................................
Murray Altheim <murray07 at altheim.com>
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