Bug: Variables in Square Bracket Links dont work in form fields

see title!

Test case

see "Topic Summary" field below (I hijacked that field for this purpose)

Environment

-- MartinGregory - 02 Apr 2004

Follow up

Question

It appears that ATTACHURL doesn't work properly in a form field.

If you edit this page and copy this:

DynIP.txt

down in the "AssignedQuestionTo" field, you will see that it appears as an unresolved wiki link instead of a valid file attachment link... yet the link above remains valid.

(I have put it down there myself and that is what I see... I presume the person to whom this is assigned will have to re-do that, since their name will be put into AssignedTo by the assigner, right!?)

Is that right? Is there some reason why variables in general can't appear in form fields?

Environment

-- MartinGregory - 23 Mar 2004

Call me an impatient bastard, but pretty please could someone look at this?

-- MartinGregory - 01 Apr 2004

1. yep, you can. its not simple though.. its a problem somewhere in the rendering code and thats horrible. (I'm playing with it, but ug)
2. looks like using any VARIABLE in a squarebracket link in a FormField does not work. interesting

I don't know if there is a reason why there is no handleCommonTags before the getRenderedVersion. The patch below makes it work, but I am not sure that it has not been left out for a reason - anyone else care to comment?

If there are no objections, I will commit this - and later change the code so that handleCommonTags gets called in getRenderedVersion.. (or something similar)

Index: lib/TWiki.pm
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/twiki/twiki/lib/TWiki.pm,v
retrieving revision 1.313
diff --unified=3 -r1.313 TWiki.pm
--- lib/TWiki.pm   30 Mar 2004 08:21:56 -0000   1.313
+++ lib/TWiki.pm   1 Apr 2004 12:00:36 -0000
@@ -3198,6 +3198,7 @@
             $metaText .= "|  $title:|$value  |\n";
         }
 
+       $metaText = handleCommonTags( $metaText, $topic );
         $metaText = getRenderedVersion( $metaText, $web );
     }
 
@@ -3804,6 +3805,7 @@
        $text = $altText;
    }
     }
+    $text = handleCommonTags( $text, $web );
     $text = getRenderedVersion( $text, $web );
     return $text;
 }

-- SvenDowideit - 01 Apr 2004

Answer

I think my question is answered: it looks like a bug.

Thanks for your quick response Sven. I might even apply your patch to my (1 Feb 2003 production version!) of Twiki.pm and see if it fixes it! (Assuming that it's even similar enough for the diff to work).

Probably this belongs in a bug report now, rather than a support question?

-- MartinGregory - 02 Apr 2004

Not sure if this is the right fix. The view script does this rendering:

   $tmpl = &TWiki::handleCommonTags( $tmpl, $topic );
    if( $viewRaw ) {
        $tmpl =~ s/%META{[^}]*}%//go;
    } else {
        $tmpl = &TWiki::handleMetaTags( $webName, $topic, $tmpl, $meta, ( $rev == $maxrev ) );
    }
    writeDebugTimes( "view - handleCommonTags for template done" );
    $tmpl = &TWiki::getRenderedVersion( $tmpl, "", $meta ); ## better to use meta rendering?

whereas TWiki::renderFormData() does this:

    $text =~ s/%META{\s*"form"\s*}%/&renderFormData( $theWeb, $theTopic, $meta )/ge;
    $text =~ s/%META{\s*"formfield"\s*(.*?)}%/&renderFormField( $meta, $1 )/ge;
    $text =~ s/%META{\s*"attachments"\s*(.*)}%/&TWiki::Attach::renderMetaData( $theWeb,
                                                $theTopic, $meta, $1, $isTopRev )/ge;
    $text =~ s/%META{\s*"moved"\s*}%/&renderMoved( $theWeb, $theTopic, $meta )/ge;
    $text =~ s/%META{\s*"parent"\s*(.*)}%/&renderParent( $theWeb, $theTopic, $meta, $1 )/ge;

    $text = &TWiki::handleCommonTags( $text, $theTopic );

That is, we have this rendering sequence:

1. common tags
2. meta tag handling:
   1. get rendered version (in case of form fields)
   2. common tags (for all meta tags)
3. get rendered version (for whole text including meta data)

It looks like the correct fix is to remove the getRenderedVersion() call in TWiki::renderFormData(). It needs to be checked if this does not introduce other issues elsewhere / if other meta data renering like renderFormField(), renderMetaData(), renderMoved(), renderParent() needs to have the same fix.

Again, this added complexity could be reduced if we SimplifyInternalMetaDataHandling into one flat stream of data.

This is a bug that should be tracked in BugReport.

-- PeterThoeny - 02 Apr 2004

It is reported here: VariableInSquareBracketLinkDoestWorkInFormField

-- MartinGregory - 02 Apr 2004

Fix record

looks like i accidently fixed this when i reduced the number of handleCommonTags and getRenderedVersion that we do in the handleMetaData code (now its down to 6 every view)

its in CVS now

-- SvenDowideit - 21 Apr 2004