Re: [xwiki-devs] [PROPOSAL] Use relative URLs instead of external URLs with sendRedirect

I was starting to look at what to modify and I found that we are really not consistent right now: most of the Java code in oldcore like XWikiAction are using absolute URL but all VM I could see (and I guess it's the same for the wiki pages) send relative URLs. So using absolute URL for send redirect is very far from being a rule right now. It also mean that making it configurable is going to be a pain since none of the .vm and wiki page are going though some common redirect oriented URL generator like most Java code do. Here is a proposal: * introduce a configuration but use it only in XWikiDocument#getURL(String action, String params, boolean redirect, XWikiContext context) (that's the method where pretty much all Java code go trough when asking for a redirect URL) * introduce a api.Document#getURL(String action, String queryString, boolean redirect) method to follow XWikiDocument (from scratch I think I would prefer getRedirectURL but it's simpler to follow already existing API for now) * we can refactor later the .vm and wiki page to support this new configuration. What's important right now is to allow someone to come back to old behavior for whatever reason (which sounds a lot less necessary to me now that I know that we actually use a lot of relative URL in sendRedirect) but better be safe since it does not cost a lot here and I plan to introduce this in xwiki.cfg only WDYT ?

On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 1:10 AM, Thomas Mortagne <thomas.mortagne(a)xwiki.com> wrote: > On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 11:36 PM, Sergiu Dumitriu<sergiu(a)xwiki.com> wrote: >> On 03/20/2012 03:39 AM, Thomas Mortagne wrote: >>> >>> Hi devs, >>> >>> In HTTP specifications a redirect is always absolute URL which is >>> probably why we use absolute URL with sendRedirect. >>> >>> However sendRedirect does not produce direct HTTP response but allows >>> relative URL and delegate to the application server the job of >>> producing proper absolute URL. >>> >>> IMO XWiki should always use relative URL everywhere it can so I >>> propose to change our practice to use relative URL instead of absolute >>> URL with HttpSevletResponse#sendRedirect when possible. >>> >>> The only reasons I see to use external URLs are: >>> * interwiki URL in a domain based multiwiki >>> * html/pdf export for links pointing on not exported pages or non view >>> actions >>> >>> WDYT ? >> >> >> I don't think this will actually solve the problem. > > What problem ? If you are talking about > http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-7632 it did fixed the issue in this > specific use case as I said on the issue itself. > >> As long as XWiki doesn't >> know the correct URL to use, I doubt that the container will do any better. >> I just tested this on Apache HTTPD + mod_proxy_http going to Jetty, and it >> didn't solve the problem. > > Probably mean you did not properly configured your reverse proxy but > in my use case it was done right. > >> >> For the PDF export, all URLs must be external. A relative URL in a PDF >> doesn't have a base URL to work with, since the PDF is a standalone >> document. That's why we use a special URLFactory when exporting PDFs. > > I know we are using a special URLFactory for pdf export. If a document > pointing to itself or to another document exported in the same pdf is > an external URL with sheme/host/port then there is something pretty > wrong in the pdf export. Anyway that's not really the subject of the > proposal. > >> >> >>> Here is my +1. We very often fix bugs in the way to produce external >>> URL and it's still not OK (see >>> http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-7632) so lets reduce the scope for >>> this need as much as possible. >>>