VIRTUAL_URL

[yuppie]

On Zope-CMF Alexander Limi wrote:
[...]
> I investigate the options i have, noting that no variable seems to keep
> the actual URL that is *inside the fecking URL bar* in my browser.
>
> I turn to Simon Eisenmann for help, he comes up with an idea of using a
> combination of SERVER_URL and PATH_TRANSLATED to construct the actual
> URL we're at.
>
> But guess what? This doesn't work in Virtual Hosting scenarioes. So we
> have to create an additional rule that gets rendered if you have a
> Virtual Hosted system.
>
> The rule ends up looking like this:
>
> <a
> tal:define="url
> request/VIRTUAL_URL|string:${request/SERVER_URL}${request/PATH_TRANSLATED}"
> tal:attributes="href string:${url}#someContent"
>
>> Skip to content</a>
>
>
> Easy, right?
[...]

I think this is a bug. VIRTUAL_URL should always be available. This would make it much easier to use:

  <a tal:attributes="href string:${request/VIRTUAL_URL}#someContent"
  > Skip to content</a>

[ChrisW (chris-simplistix)]

While I'm tempted just to out-and-out reject this, my name isn't Andreas ;-)

Why not just use here/absolute_url or container/absolute_url, depending on what it is you actually want to do?

Any code that uses a fixed string URL like SERVER_URL or VIRTUAL_URL is gonna be pretty fragile...

[yuppie (yuppie3)]

@ chrisw:

See my request
<http://mail.zope.org/pipermail/zope-dev/2003-December/021100.html>
and Casey's reply
<http://mail.zope.org/pipermail/zope-dev/2003-December/021101.html>
for reasons why Evan added VIRTUAL_URL in Zope 2.7.

absolute_url() does not return the same URL. VIRTUAL_URL works fine if you have a VHM.

[ChrisW (chris-simplistix)]

Why on earth did it end up being called VIRTUAL_URL?

I still don't really see the usecase for this, but the functionality is there, so I'll just keep quiet...

[Andreas Jung (ajung)]

Similiar issue: #1308

[ChrisW (chris-simplistix)]

Status: Pending => Resolved

It would appear Evan added this functionality in Zope 2.7, so this is resolved.

[yuppie (yuppie3)]

This is *not* resolved. In Zope 2.7 VIRTUAL_URL was added, but it is only available if a VHM exists. This makes it hard to write code that works with and without a VHM.

[ChrisW (chris-simplistix)]

Since adding a vhm has no negative impact, I'd say adding a vhm is the "right" thing to do t osolve your problem.

[yuppie (yuppie3)]

Oops. My last comment was not correct. The fact a VHM exists is not enough. It has to be used.

My point is that you have to be very careful if you use VIRTUAL_URL in a product because you can't be sure a VHM is used.

BTW: Issue #1308 is very similar to this one. I don't agree with the reasons why it was rejected either.

[Florent Guillaume (efge)]

Status: Resolved => Rejected

This bug is valid but is now worked on in
http://zope.org/Collectors/Zope/1568

So rejecting as dupe.