[Opensim-dev] REST handlers use partial string matching

[Melanie]

The proper method is to break up the local portion of the URL into
words using "/" as the separator, then matching that list of words
against similar lists created from the registered URLs, usually
stored as a tree.
There are two ways to match, "shortest match" and "more specific".
The algorithm used by apache is "shortest match", meaning that as
soon as a word list is fully matched against the request's words,
it's considered a match and the handler is invoked.
Everything past the matched portion becomes extra path info.

Melanie

On 01/04/2014 21:08, Mic Bowman wrote:
> so what you're saying is just make sure the '/' is part of the match? to
> terminate the match? i think the problem is that /asset matches /asset_test
> which is not what is expected. so all registered partial matches should
> include the trailing '/' to disambiguate... or am i missing the point?
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 12:00 PM, Melanie <melanie at t-data.com> wrote:
> 
>> It is required because it's the basis of "extra path info". It's not
>> part of REST, but rather part of HTTP.
>>
>> Requesting
>>
>> /asset/456392f6-c0b3-a346-6465-8218cbe7abe84592
>>
>> which is not a registered URL, will invoke
>>
>> /asset/
>>
>> which is. The ID passed as part of the URL is then given to that
>> handler as the extra path info. You have the same thing in apache.
>>
>> Basically, any URL longer than and starting with a registered URL
>> will invoke that registered URL with extra path info.
>> The fallacy in our server is that the matching isn't by path parts,
>> but character-wise.
>>
>> Melanie
>>
>> On 01/04/2014 20:03, Justin Clark-Casey wrote:
>> > In what context is such partial matching required?  It is not a
>> requirement of REST, as far as I know.
>> >
>> > On 01/04/14 18:55, Melanie wrote:
>> >> The REST URLs need to use partial matching, however, current
>> >> semantics are broken.
>> >>
>> >> Without partial matching, URLS like /assets/782911..... would not
>> >> work. the issue here is that it should match whole URL parts, not
>> >> partial URL parts. Matching partial words as it does now seems like
>> >> someone was cutting corners, it's not by design.
>> >>
>> >> /assets/ should match /assets/9887234...... but not /assets_exist.
>> >> The slash is the differentiator and partial compares of URL string
>> >> prefixes should be done by full-string matches of slash/delimited
>> >> parts, not prefix matching of the entire URL.
>> >>
>> >> Melanie
>> >>
>> >> On 01/04/2014 15:00, Oren Hurvitz wrote:
>> >>> I tried to add a REST handler at the endpoint "/assets_exist". It
>> turns out
>> >>> that I can't do that, because REST handlers are searched using partial
>> >>> string matches, so servers that don't implement the new handler will
>> >>> mistakenly choose the "/assets" endpoint instead.
>> >>>
>> >>> For now, I solved the problem by using a different endpoint:
>> >>> "/get_assets_exist".
>> >>>
>> >>> For the future, I think that this should be changed so that only full
>> string
>> >>> matches work. Otherwise each time a new handler is added it will have
>> to
>> >>> find an endpoint name that isn't a prefix of any current endpoint -- a
>> >>> difficult and error-prone task. Before I do that, does anyone know of
>> >>> endpoints that rely on the current behavior (partial string matches)?
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> --
>> >>> View this message in context:
>> http://opensim-dev.2196679.n2.nabble.com/REST-handlers-use-partial-string-matching-tp7579119.html
>> >>> Sent from the opensim-dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
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