Need help understanding mason and query args

RT Users
1

I’m trying to add bookmarkable urls to the Statistics stuff, and almost
have it working. But, I don’t seem to understand what mason is trying
to do with query args. Mason seems to be doing what it’s documented to
do, I just don’t understand why, or what to do about it.

If you take the text below, and save it to /opt/rt3/local/html/foo.html,
and then go to the URL http://MYRT/foo.html?sMonth=2 then it will do
what I expect, the text area will show that the value of the sMonth arg
is two, and the pull downs showing the start date will display March 1,
2010 (ok, maybe that’s odd, but this is a stripped down test).

Now, if you chose a different month and hit the update button, when the
page gets built again, the sMonth arg is an array ref, with the new
value you selected, and the original value specified in the URL. This
isn’t what I expected, although reading the mason doc, it’s supposed to
do this.

Now, I’m not a mason, apache, or web page developer normally, but most
of this has seemed straight forward, up to now. I’m sure that I’m
missing something basic, can anyone tell me what it is? (short words,
please! ;> )

Here’s foo.html:

<& /Elements/Header, Title => loc(“Test page”) &>
<& /Elements/Tabs, Title => loc(“Test page”) &>

Description

This is a test page

Start Date: % for ($n=0;$n<=$#months;$n++){ % if ($sMonth eq $n){ % $selected ="selected"; % }else { % $selected =""; % } <% $selected %> ><% $months[$n] %> %} % for ($n=1;$n<=31;$n++){ % if ($sDay == $n ){ % $selected ="selected"; % }else { % $selected =""; % } <% $selected %> ><% $n %> % } % % for ($n=0;$n <= scalar @years-1;$n++){ % if ($years[$n] == $sYear){ % $selected ="selected"; % }else{ % $selected =""; % } <% $selected %> ><% $years[$n] %> % }

<INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="<&|/l&>Update Page</&>"
% $debugtext .= "value of sMonth is |$sMonth|\n"; % $debugtext .= "ref of sMonth is " . ref($sMonth) . "\n"; % if (ref $sMonth) {$debugtext .= "join of sMonth is " . join(',', @$sMonth) . "\n";} <% $debugtext %>

<%ARGS>
$sMonth=>undef
$sDay=>undef
$sYear=>undef
</%ARGS>

<%INIT>
my $n;
my $selected;
my $debugtext=“”;
my @years =(‘2010’, ‘2009’, ‘2008’, ‘2007’, ‘2006’, ‘2005’, ‘2004’,
‘2003’ ,‘2003’ ,‘2002’);
my @months=qw/Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec/;
my %monthsMaxDay = (
0 => 31, # January
1 => 29, # February, allow for leap year
2 => 31, # March
3 => 30, # April
4 => 31, # May
5 => 30, # June
6 => 31, # July
7 => 31, # August
8 => 30, # September
9 => 31, # October
10=> 30, # November
11=> 31 # December
);

</%INIT>

Kelly F. Hickel
Senior Software Architect
MQSoftware, Inc
952.345.8677
kfh@mqsoftware.com

2

This problem is not about Mason, but HTML standard. Your form tag has
no action attribute, but this attribute is required by
standard(Forms in HTML documents).
There is no defined behaviour of UAs when this attribute is not
defined, but as I think all behave similar they use current URI as
action attribute.
When you click submit button your data goes to “http://…?sMonth=2”
and POST data also has sMonth new value. Mason parse both data
sources: URI params and POST stream for other params, Mason see two
arguments with same name and construct array. You can use this fact to
send mutiply values with one name.

I hope this is right answer :)On 8/31/05, Kelly F. Hickel kfh@mqsoftware.com wrote:

I’m trying to add bookmarkable urls to the Statistics stuff, and almost
have it working. But, I don’t seem to understand what mason is trying
to do with query args. Mason seems to be doing what it’s documented to
do, I just don’t understand why, or what to do about it.

If you take the text below, and save it to /opt/rt3/local/html/foo.html,
and then go to the URL http://MYRT/foo.html?sMonth=2 then it will do
what I expect, the text area will show that the value of the sMonth arg
is two, and the pull downs showing the start date will display March 1,
2010 (ok, maybe that’s odd, but this is a stripped down test).

Now, if you chose a different month and hit the update button, when the
page gets built again, the sMonth arg is an array ref, with the new
value you selected, and the original value specified in the URL. This
isn’t what I expected, although reading the mason doc, it’s supposed to
do this.

Now, I’m not a mason, apache, or web page developer normally, but most
of this has seemed straight forward, up to now. I’m sure that I’m
missing something basic, can anyone tell me what it is? (short words,
please! ;> )

Here’s foo.html:

<& /Elements/Header, Title => loc(“Test page”) &>
<& /Elements/Tabs, Title => loc(“Test page”) &>

Description

This is a test page

Start Date: % for ($n=0;$n<=$#months;$n++){ % if ($sMonth eq $n){ % $selected ="selected"; % }else { % $selected =""; % } <% $selected %> ><% $months[$n] %> %} % for ($n=1;$n<=31;$n++){ % if ($sDay == $n ){ % $selected ="selected"; % }else { % $selected =""; % } <% $selected %> ><% $n %> % } % % for ($n=0;$n <= scalar @years-1;$n++){ % if ($years[$n] == $sYear){ % $selected ="selected"; % }else{ % $selected =""; % } <% $selected %> ><% $years[$n] %> % }

<INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="<&|/l&>Update Page</&>"
% $debugtext .= "value of sMonth is |$sMonth|\n"; % $debugtext .= "ref of sMonth is " . ref($sMonth) . "\n"; % if (ref $sMonth) {$debugtext .= "join of sMonth is " . join(',', @$sMonth) . "\n";} <% $debugtext %>

<%ARGS>
$sMonth=>undef
$sDay=>undef
$sYear=>undef
</%ARGS>

<%INIT>
my $n;
my $selected;
my $debugtext=“”;
my @years =(‘2010’, ‘2009’, ‘2008’, ‘2007’, ‘2006’, ‘2005’, ‘2004’,
‘2003’ ,‘2003’ ,‘2002’);
my @months=qw/Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec/;
my %monthsMaxDay = (
0 => 31, # January
1 => 29, # February, allow for leap year
2 => 31, # March
3 => 30, # April
4 => 31, # May
5 => 30, # June
6 => 31, # July
7 => 31, # August
8 => 30, # September
9 => 31, # October
10=> 30, # November
11=> 31 # December
);

</%INIT>

–
Kelly F. Hickel
Senior Software Architect
MQSoftware, Inc
952.345.8677
kfh@mqsoftware.com

The rt-users Archives

Be sure to check out the RT Wiki at http://wiki.bestpractical.com

Buy your copy of our new book, RT Essentials, today!

Download a free sample chapter from http://rtbook.bestpractical.com

Best regards, Ruslan.

3

Ruslan,
It looks like that worked, thanks! I’ll have to review all of
the Statistics code’s use of FORM, as I just copied this from something
in another file.

Kelly F. Hickel
Senior Software Architect
MQSoftware, Inc
952.345.8677
kfh@mqsoftware.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Ruslan Zakirov [mailto:ruslan.zakirov@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 9:50 AM
To: Kelly F. Hickel
Cc: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Need help understanding mason and query args

This problem is not about Mason, but HTML standard. Your form tag has
no action attribute, but this attribute is required by
standard(Forms in HTML documents).
There is no defined behaviour of UAs when this attribute is not
defined, but as I think all behave similar they use current URI as
action attribute.
When you click submit button your data goes to “http://…?sMonth=2”
and POST data also has sMonth new value. Mason parse both data
sources: URI params and POST stream for other params, Mason see two
arguments with same name and construct array. You can use this fact to
send mutiply values with one name.

I hope this is right answer :slight_smile:

I’m trying to add bookmarkable urls to the Statistics stuff, and
almost
have it working. But, I don’t seem to understand what mason is
trying
to do with query args. Mason seems to be doing what it’s documented
to
do, I just don’t understand why, or what to do about it.

If you take the text below, and save it to
/opt/rt3/local/html/foo.html,
and then go to the URL http://MYRT/foo.html?sMonth=2 then it will do
what I expect, the text area will show that the value of the sMonth
arg
is two, and the pull downs showing the start date will display March
1,
2010 (ok, maybe that’s odd, but this is a stripped down test).

Now, if you chose a different month and hit the update button, when
the
page gets built again, the sMonth arg is an array ref, with the new
value you selected, and the original value specified in the URL.
This
isn’t what I expected, although reading the mason doc, it’s supposed
to
do this.

Now, I’m not a mason, apache, or web page developer normally, but
most
of this has seemed straight forward, up to now. I’m sure that I’m
missing something basic, can anyone tell me what it is? (short
words,
please! ;> )

Here’s foo.html:

<& /Elements/Header, Title => loc(“Test page”) &>
<& /Elements/Tabs, Title => loc(“Test page”) &>

Description

This is a test page


Start Date: % for ($n=0;$n<=$#months;$n++){ % if ($sMonth eq $n){ % $selected ="selected"; % }else { % $selected =""; % } <% $selected %> ><% $months[$n] %> %} % for ($n=1;$n<=31;$n++){ % if ($sDay == $n ){ % $selected ="selected"; % }else { % $selected =""; % } <% $selected %> ><% $n

%>

% }

%
% for ($n=0;$n <= scalar @years-1;$n++){
% if ($years[$n] == $sYear){
% $selected =“selected”;
% }else{
% $selected =“”;
% }
<option value=<% $years[$n] %> <% $selected %> ><%
$years[$n]