Watchlist glitch

Took me forever to figure out, but I've finally confirmed that this only happens when the watchlist URL ends in .php/ rather than just .php, for whatever reason. I've also confirmed that this happens in IE, Safari, and Firefox, didn't try Chrome or anything else.

If I type in the watchlist's URL or get to it from a bookmark, and the URL happens to end in .php/ rather than just plain .php, the page behaves strangely if I click a link to go to a page I have in my list - not the History link (the history link works fine) but the page itself. It simply refreshes the Watchlist page, and adds the URL of the page I'm trying to go to, into the watchlist URL. (For example, I click on the Skyrim Fridge link - it refreshes the Watchlist, and the URL at the top becomes https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/awl.php/pmwiki.php/Fridge/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim. From that same refresh, I try clicking on the Pirates of the Caribbean Awesome page, and the URL at the top changes to https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/awl.php/pmwiki.php/Fridge/pmwiki.php/Awesome/PiratesOfTheCaribbean.)

It doesn't matter if I'm trying to open it in a new tab or not, and as I said, the history links and My Edits/etc links work fine, it's just the links to the actual pages, and only if the page ends in a slash and not just plain .php.

I know it's a bit of a minor thing, but it is indeed a glitch and it was really really annoying before I figured out why it was consistently doing that on my PC but not my ipod (I had .php on one and .php/ on the other - turns out the glitch works the same on both).

edited 20th Oct '12 10:36:31 PM by Dawnwing

Just confirmed the glitch's existence via personal testing. Bizarre, but also entertaining to watch the URL slowly expand with more and more bits added in.

Ah, the fun of specifying relative vs. absolute URL's.

See, the "history" links are specified in an absolute manner (it includes the "https://tvtropes.org/..." prefix) but the article links are specified in a relative manner (it only specifies "pmwiki.php/Namespace/Article"). So if your URL accidentally ends in a slash (which Web browsers assume are directory separators) it throws off all relative UR Ls (e.g. article links) but does not affect absolute UR Ls (e.g. history links).

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

...I'm going to pretend I understood that.

Relative to how the watchlist page is coded, it's actually what's supposed to happen.

Let me see if I can explain in simpler terms...

• Watchlist address is "https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/awl.php", right? Your Web browser internally divides this into two parts: a directory path ("https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/") and a filename ("awl.php").
• A relative URL specifies a filename (e.g. "pmwiki.php?Namespace/Article") relative to the page's directory path (as described above). E.g. "https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/" (assumed from page URL) + "pmwiki.php?Namespace/Article" (relative URL)
• If you leave a trailing backslash on your URL, your browser interprets this as a different directory path ("http://tvtropes.pmwiki/awl.php/") and different file name (empty). So the same relative URL now points to "http://tvtropes.pmwiki/awl.php/" (different directory path) + "pmwiki.php?Namespace/Article" (same relative URL)
• An absolute URL, on the other hand, is prefixed with a "/" or full "http://" address, which avoids the above problem.

edited 21st Oct '12 5:17:29 AM by Stratadrake

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

Okay, thanks for explaining that, both of you; I think I understand it now. Hmmph, you'd think that in two classes learning about PHP they'd have taught us that by now, guess not.

So, just out of curiosity, why is the watchlist coded that way? Are there benefits to doing it that way vs. an absolute URL?

What I don't get is how someone accidentally discovered this in the first place. If you click on the link to your watchlist, you'll never get a URL ending with a slash. And in my experience, the kind of people who manually type in URLs are not generally the type of people who gratuitously add slashes to the end.

I agree it's a bug, but I think it's an extremely low priority one, especially since changing things always has the potential for introducing new bugs.

I can confirm the existence of this bug, but I think there's a good reason it's existed for years with nobody noticing. And it is utterly harmless.

edited 21st Oct '12 3:22:26 PM by Xtifr

Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.

I don't even know how I did that. Somehow, I had bookmarked the page with .php/ on my laptop, but I don't know how that slash got there. I don't remember typing it out - and if I had, why would I add the slash - and like you said, the watchlist button link doesn't have it. O.o I originally thought it was just some IE issue, and then I noticed it was working after I clicked the button on the screen rather than my bookmark, and from there I compared them till I figured out that the slash was why.

edited 21st Oct '12 5:40:08 PM by Dawnwing

Strange things can happen when you type your URL's by hand.

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

Bumping to see if this is still an issue.

~Dawnwing?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

No longer an issue; tested it and seems to be fixed.

Cool, thanks for checking on this. Locking.