/ 
Mason-2.24
River stage two • 16 direct dependents • 16 total dependents
/ Mason::Manual::RequestDispatch

NAME

Mason::Manual::RequestDispatch - How request paths get mapped to page components

DESCRIPTION

Given the request path

/news/sports/hockey

Mason searches for the following components in order, setting $m->path_info as noted.

/news/sports/hockey.{mp,mc}
/news/sports/hockey/index.{mp,mc}
/news/sports/hockey/dhandler.{mp,mc}
/news/sports/dhandler.{mp,mc}  # $m->path_info = hockey
/news/sports.{mp,mc}           # $m->path_info = hockey (but see next section)
/news/dhandler.{mp,mc}         # $m->path_info = sports/hockey
/news.{mp,mc}                  # $m->path_info = sports/hockey (but see next section)
/dhandler.{mp,mc}              # $m->path_info = news/sports/hockey

where .{mp,mc} means either .mp (indicating a pure-perl component). or .mc (indicating a top-level component).

The following sections describe these elements in more detail.

Autoextended path

The request path is suffixed with ".mp" and ".mc" to translate it to a component path.

/news/sports/hockey.{mp,mc}

Index

An index matches its exact directory, nothing underneath.

/news/sports/hockey/index.{mp,mc}

Dhandlers

A dhandler matches its directory as well as anything underneath, setting $m->path_info to the remainder.

/news/sports/hockey/dhandler.{mp,mc}
/news/sports/dhandler.{mp,mc}  # $m->path_info = hockey
/news/dhandler.{mp,mc}         # $m->path_info = sports/hockey
/dhandler.{mp,mc}              # $m->path_info = news/sports/hockey

Partial paths

A component can match an initial part of the URL, setting $m->path_info to the remainder:

/news/sports.{mp,mc}           # $m->path_info = hockey
/news.{mp,mc}                  # $m->path_info = sports/hockey

Since this isn't always desirable behavior, it must be explicitly enabled for the component. Mason will call method allow_path_info on the component class, and will only allow the match if it returns true:

<%class>
method allow_path_info { 1 }
</%class>

The default allow_path_info returns false.

allow_path_info is not checked on dhandlers, since the whole point of dhandlers is to match partial paths.

Trailing slash

If the request URL has a trailing slash (ends with /), we remove it before the match process begins and add it to the $m->path_info. Components that should match must have allow_path_info return true.

For example:

## request URL /news/
/news/index.{mp,mc}     # $m->path_info = / if index.{mp,mc} has
                        # allow_path_info => true
/news/dhandler.{mp,mc}  # $m->path_info = /
/news.{mp,mc}           # $m->path_info = / if news.{mp,mc} has
                        # allow_path_info => true

## request URL /news/sports/
/news/sports/index.{mp,mc}     # $m->path_info = / if index.{mp,mc} has
                               # allow_path_info => true
/news/sports/dhandler.{mp,mc}  # $m->path_info = /
/news/sports.{mp,mc}           # $m->path_info = / if sports.{mp,mc}
                               # has allow_path_info => true
/news/dhandler.{mp,mc}         # $m->path_info = sports/
/news.{mp,mc}                  # $m->path_info = /sports/ if news.{mp,mc}
                               # has allow_path_info => true

Routes

It is possible to use route syntax to more elegantly parse $m->path_info for dhandlers and partial paths, e.g.

<%class>
route "{year:[0-9]+}/{month:[0-9]{2}}";
</%class>

See Mason::Plugin::RouterSimple.

SEE ALSO

Mason

AUTHOR

Jonathan Swartz <swartz@pobox.com>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2012 by Jonathan Swartz.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.