Template::Plugin::URL
Author: Andy Wardley

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# Template::Plugin::URL

## Plugin to construct complex URLs

# Contents

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# SYNOPSIS

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    [% USE url('/cgi-bin/foo.pl') %]

    [% url(debug = 1, id = 123) %]
       # ==> /cgi/bin/foo.pl?debug=1&amp;id=123

    [% USE mycgi = url('/cgi-bin/bar.pl', mode='browse', debug=1) %]

    [% mycgi %]
       # ==> /cgi/bin/bar.pl?mode=browse&amp;debug=1

    [% mycgi(mode='submit') %]
       # ==> /cgi/bin/bar.pl?mode=submit&amp;debug=1

    [% mycgi(debug='d2 p0', id='D4-2k[4]') %]
       # ==> /cgi-bin/bar.pl?mode=browse&amp;debug=d2%20p0&amp;id=D4-2k%5B4%5D

# DESCRIPTION

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The `URL` plugin can be used to construct complex URLs from a base stem and a hash array of additional query parameters.

The constructor should be passed a base URL and optionally, a hash array reference of default parameters and values. Used from with a template, it would look something like the following:

    [% USE url('http://www.somewhere.com/cgi-bin/foo.pl') %]
    [% USE url('/cgi-bin/bar.pl', mode='browse') %]
    [% USE url('/cgi-bin/baz.pl', mode='browse', debug=1) %]

When the plugin is then called without any arguments, the default base and parameters are returned as a formatted query string.

    [% url %]

For the above three examples, these will produce the following outputs:

    http://www.somewhere.com/cgi-bin/foo.pl
    /cgi-bin/bar.pl?mode=browse
    /cgi-bin/baz.pl?mode=browse&amp;debug=1

Note that additional parameters are separated by '`&amp;`' rather than simply '`&`'. This is the correct behaviour for HTML pages but is, unfortunately, incorrect when creating URLs that do not need to be encoded safely for HTML. This is likely to be corrected in a future version of the plugin (most probably with TT3). In the mean time, you can set `$Template::Plugin::URL::JOINT` to `&` to get the correct behaviour.

Additional parameters may be also be specified to the URL:

    [% url(mode='submit', id='wiz') %]

Which, for the same three examples, produces:

    http://www.somewhere.com/cgi-bin/foo.pl?mode=submit&amp;id=wiz
    /cgi-bin/bar.pl?mode=browse&amp;id=wiz
    /cgi-bin/baz.pl?mode=browse&amp;debug=1&amp;id=wiz

A new base URL may also be specified as the first option:

    [% url('/cgi-bin/waz.pl', test=1) %]

producing

    /cgi-bin/waz.pl?test=1
    /cgi-bin/waz.pl?mode=browse&amp;test=1
    /cgi-bin/waz.pl?mode=browse&amp;debug=1&amp;test=1

The ordering of the parameters is non-deterministic due to fact that Perl's hashes themselves are unordered. This isn't a problem as the ordering of CGI parameters is insignificant (to the best of my knowledge). All values will be properly escaped thanks to some code borrowed from Lincoln Stein's `CGI` module. e.g.

    [% USE url('/cgi-bin/woz.pl') %]
    [% url(name="Elrich von Benjy d'Weiro") %]

Here the spaces and "`'`" character are escaped in the output:

    /cgi-bin/woz.pl?name=Elrich%20von%20Benjy%20d%27Weiro

An alternate name may be provided for the plugin at construction time as per regular Template Toolkit syntax.

    [% USE mycgi = url('cgi-bin/min.pl') %]
    [% mycgi(debug=1) %]

# AUTHOR

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Andy Wardley <abw@wardley.org> http://wardley.org/

# COPYRIGHT

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Copyright (C) 1996-2007 Andy Wardley. All Rights Reserved.

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

# SEE ALSO

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Template::Plugin

/modules/Template/Plugin/URL.html last modified 10:55:05 31-May-2007