[support] file_create_url() breaks some sites

[Pierre Rineau]

Thanks for you answer, but I think you did not answer my question. Maybe
I did not formulate it correctly.

When I say relative path, I mean path relative to server root (without
domain name in it), not path without the preceding "/".

Absolute URL is an URL with "http://server" and relative URL will be
just "/". I speak of relative or absolute URL not relative or absolute
PATH.

On ven, 2008-07-04 at 15:43 +0100, Matt Connolly wrote:
> In either case, PUBLIC or PRIVATE, the resulting url for a file should  
> look something like:
> 
> /path/to/filename

No suprises.

> Which should then use the same "http://server/" part as the rest of  
> the site.
> urls, generally need to be absolute so that urls can be created that  
> will work irrespective of the setting of "Clean URLs". eg:
> 
> Clean URL off:
> drupal pages are at http://server/?q=drupal/path/page  ->  the path of  
> these will *always* be "/" since thats the path that hosts the  
> "index.php" file.
> 
> Clean URL on:
> drupal pages are at http://server/drupal/path/page -> your browser  
> thinks the path of the file is in a directory /drupal/path/ .

With clean URL, and absolute pathes:
--
my file URL will be http://server/files/filename
my path URL will be http://server/drupal/path/page

clean URL, relative:
--
file: /files/filename
path: /drupal/path/page

Without clean URL, absolute:
--
file: http://server/files/filename
path: http://server/index.php?q=drupal/path/page

without, relative:
--
file: /files/filename
path: /index.php?q=drupal/path/page

No difference, in all cases, apache will find the file to use. URL do
not need to carry the "http://server" since in all cases, this string is
exactly the same, clean URL or not. Apache (or another httpd) will know
what to rewrite or not. The only case we could absolutely need absolute
URLs will be in case our files are on another static server (eg:
"http:/static-server").

So relative or absolute URLs, makes no difference at all wheither it's a
file or a drupal page the user asked.

Even better, if the file does not exists, he's got a clean 404 error.

> You can see that the setting of clean urls can change whether a  
> relative link will work or not.
> 
> I think it's safe that url() defaults to making absolute urls that  
> will work in both clean urls ON and OFF.

Absolute or relative makes no difference here. URL default is FALSE
(relative) anyway.

Absolute is necessary only if you have to link content from another
httpd on another box (or another virtual host).

> 
> It also sounds like you might have a local network problem.

This is not a problem, this a feature, we have a quite complex network,
and linking files with Drupal is the only problem we ever had with CMSs
(we don't only use Drupal).

To finish, if we look to the default Apache rewrite rules that Drupal
put in the .htaccess file, we have:

  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

These two lines have their importance. Apache here checks if path is not
a real FS path neither a real file on FS.

When we link a file, we will never add the index.php?q= except maybe for
private files, when we have to do some checks with Drupal framework.

But for public files, we never need the index.php?q=, clean url or not,
relative path or not.

I really think this method should be able to generate relative pathes.
If it can't, is there a workaround to do so ?

> -Matt
> 
> 
> 
> On 04/07/2008, at 2:21 PM, Pierre Rineau wrote:
> 
> > Hi
> >
> > I have some problèmes with the CCK image field module. This is not  
> > because of the module, but because of the core file_create_url()  
> > function.
> >
> > I explain:
> >
> > <?php
> > function file_create_url($path) {
> >  // Strip file_directory_path from $path. We only include relative  
> > paths in urls.
> >  if (strpos($path, file_directory_path() . '/') === 0) {
> >    $path = trim(substr($path, strlen(file_directory_path())), '\\/');
> >  }
> >  switch (variable_get('file_downloads', FILE_DOWNLOADS_PUBLIC)) {
> >    case FILE_DOWNLOADS_PUBLIC:
> >      return $GLOBALS['base_url'] .'/'. file_directory_path() .'/'.  
> > str_replace('\\', '/', $path);
> >    case FILE_DOWNLOADS_PRIVATE:
> >      return url('system/files/'. $path, NULL, NULL, TRUE);
> >  }
> > }
> > ?>
> >
> > This give me an asbolute URL because of the use of $GLOBALS['url'].
> >
> > If we look at the url() function, we have a boolean parameter  
> > $absolute, which is default setted to FALSE.
> > If false is selected, , the method use base_path() as base for the  
> > url, else it uses the global $base_url.
> >
> > Is this normal that drupal devs made the choice of always put  
> > absolute URL for files ?
> > Is this a bug ?
> > If not, why ?
> >
> > The problem for me is that I use drupals behind proxies (they are in  
> > a company LAN, using internal DNS which
> > are not accessible from outside). When giving absolute pathes, the  
> > site give me, through the proxy an internal
> > DNS which does not work.
> >
> > -- 
> > [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
>