On Fri 29 Feb 2008, Frank Maas wrote: > I am using a mechanism where I use the path_info to carry information > about the content to be served. However, as far as I know the only way to > do this is to create a handler that is defined for the correct location. > In the described situation, something like, > > <Location /archive/news> > PerlHandler MyNews->handler() > </Location> > > I do not see how MapToStorage handler will help here. There probably is no > /var/www/archive/news file (or directory), and even if there is, it is of > no use to Apache. Or am I completely and utterly mistaken here?
Your confusion comes from the fact that you look at it through mod_perl spectacles where you don't necessarily have a corresponding disk file. But Apache is made chiefly to ship files. So in the m2s phase apache splits the filename it gets from trans into the name of a filesystem entry and the trailing "path_info". If you have a CGI script say /bin/x.cgi that is located in /www/cgi-bin/x.cgi and you call it as /bin/x.cgi/path/info then after trans filename points to /www/cgi-bin/x.cgi/path/info. m2s then finds that /www/cgi-bin/x.cgi is a regular file. So it sets filename to /www/cgi-bin/x.cgi and path_info to /path/info. So in CGI context you can be certain that PATH_INFO is the remainder of the URI after the current script is stripped off. BTW, the default response handler the one that ships files returns 404 if path_info is not empty. Now in mod_perl you normally don't have a disk file. You have a compiled handler. So m2s will determine the start of path_info somewhere in the URI where it finds the last existing directory. Hence when using a modperl handler don't rely on path_info. By creating an additional directory or deleting one you can spoil your logic! That is called action at a distance. Use $r->uri and $r->location instead. Don't use <LocationMatch> in this case. Then the first part of $r->uri equals to $r->location. So you can compute a mod_perl version of path_info as "substr($r->uri, length($r->location))". This one doesn't depend on existing or non-existing filesystem entries. Torsten
