Genii Weblog

Anything wrong with this trick?

Mon 26 Jul 2004, 12:17 PM



by Ben Langhinrichs
I have been worried for the past couple of days by errors that show up on our Genii Software website that look like this:

Inline JPEG image
Clearly, somewhere we have a URL reference to the COEXOrder form that is relative rather than absolute, but I have not been able to track it down.  Then, I had a brainstorm.  If it can't find the design note  "http:/showcase.nsf/COEXOrder", maybe I could just add it as an alias.  So, I did.  The form name now shows as 

COEXOrder | http:/showcase.nsf/COEXOrder | COEXOrder

so that it still saves as COEXOrder and still displays that way in the form list.  The question is, is this:

  1. a stroke of genius?
  2. known trick used by every Domino developer since Ray Ozzie?
  3. a dangerous kludge?
  4. fraught with potential problems in ways I haven't thought of?

I don't know, but I have lots of smart readers.  Maybe some of you know.  It seems to work to resolve the problem, but it still seems like an odd sort of solution.

Copyright © 2004 Genii Software Ltd.

What has been said:


186.1. Christopher Byrne (07/26/2004 10:01 AM)

Interesting thought here. I think I would rather track down the link and see what is going on because there are potentially problems in other areas as well that just have not surfaced.

Why not put a redirection rule in place? That way you do not have to worry about any risks.


186.2. Stan Rogers (07/26/2004 10:26 AM)

The problem is on the COEX product page. In the main blurb, you have:

1. Try It

2. Study...

3. Buy It

The order licenses link in that list is the bad link.


186.3. Ben Langhinrichs (07/26/2004 10:59 AM)

Darn, I don't know how I missed it. Thanks! Anyway, while I will remove the workaround now, is there any inherent problem with the technique?


186.4. Stan Rogers (07/26/2004 11:25 AM)

It's not dangerous, no. The worst that can happen is that someday some release of Domino recognises a passthru URI and tries to redirect at the HTTP level before looking at your database. Of course, that single forward slash should redirect to

http://www.geniisoft.com/showcase.nsf/COEXLinks/showcase.nsf/COEXorder

if it ever does happen, which leaves you looking for a workaround again.