$web:get_htext

$web:get_htext is one of the 3 key verbs in this layer. It is quite complex and a bit difficult to understand because many features have been added over time. It's task is to parse the URL and to hand a URL request in more ``MOO readable form'' to the do_url verb.

Click here to see the current verb on MOOtiny. Note that you can inspect all verbs by using the object browser in the WWW interface.

$web:get_htext first does user authentication:

• If the request allready contains a key it retrieves the key from the URL and verifies if it is valid in several ways.
• If the request is the /auth page it creates an authentication key and returns an html description of the place where to connect the player that will be displayed by :hdisplay
• In the ordinary case (either a request by an authenticated player or a direct unauthenticated access to a MOO object), get_htext will synthesize the html code for display.
• It sets player to wooer. Since this is a wiz-owned verb, it means that player can be used in all verbs from then on to reference the object number of the person authed in. Without this setting of player, the variable player the has the object number of the connection that the web browser is using.

Next, the URL of the request is parsed.

Special Cases:

There are two types of special cases. In each case, $web:get_htext changes the form request for the special case into a normal url request of the type that $web:do_url can handle. Note that the syntax used in the WOO for all requests is always ``GET'' and not ``POST'', i.e. the total request is appended to the URL as in the examples below. See NCSA'a documentation for further details.

The first special case is verbs that are on $web_root. These verbs appear in the menu at the top right of all pages in the WWW interface.

The second are _web verbs, which appear automatically at the bottom of most objects (lists are produced using <object>:list_web_verbs). When these are used, they produce a form. The url they are converted to consists of <object>:<verb>/arg1/arg2/ which is a standard way to get the results of a specific verb on an object.

It also substitutes those weird html character codes (i.e. ``%7E'' into ``'' (using $www_utils:subst_hext)

So, most of the work of :get_htext is to figure out what type of object you want to access, i.e. it first hunts down ``?'' special requests, e.g. something like:

• /key=527433505/174?verb=who&do=Do+it%21&command=
  (the who listing)
• /key=527433505/174?verb=body&do=Do+it%21&command=
  (the body command)
• /key=527433505/1403?web_verb=help
  (a verb that sits on an object)
• /key=527433505/1659?web_verb=drop
  (same kind of verb)

If this is the case, then :get_htext calls itself with a string built of key, object:<web_verb>, arguments and next time proceeds like below.

The ``normal'' case:

If the the URL is non-''?'' then $web:do_url is called. Here are 2 examples of a calling sequence with the ``who'' $web_root verb and the page verb that appears when you click on a player. The second time :do_url gets called as you can see:

 ************ $web:get_htext
{"/key=628528948/1835?verb=who&do=Do+it%21&command=",
 {"Referer: http://tecfamoo.unige.ch:7777/key=628528948/1835",
  "User-Agent: Mozilla/1.1N (X11; I; SunOS 5.4 sun4m)", "Accept: */*",
  "Accept: image/gif", "Accept: image/x-xbitmap",
  "Accept: image/jpeg", ""},
 #-452}
 ************ $web:get_htext
{"/key=628528948/who",
 {"Referer: http://tecfamoo.unige.ch:7777/key=628528948/1835",......, ""}
}

 ----

 ************ $web:get_htext
{"/key=628528948/1324?web_verb=page&args1=hello+young+man",
 {"Referer: ........"},
#-454}
 ************ $web:get_htext
{"/key=628528948/1324:page_web/hello%20young%20man",
{"Referer: ........ "}
}