[ic] Interesting Failure Reading Scratch Variables from Session

Ed LaFrance interchange-users@icdevgroup.org
Wed Jul 17 11:27:01 2002


At 02:12 AM 07/17/2002 -0700, you wrote:

>Here's a funny one that may already be known, or perhaps some value as an FYI:
>
>Newer browsers seem to consistently fail in updating scratch variables
>stored in a session file when some other delivery failure (in this case a 
>missing
>image file) occurs;  yet Netscape 4.61 does not.  Details below for anyone
>interested.  I'm not having a problem with this, because I will insure that
>I don't have any missing images.  It's just a little curious (and I hope that
>I am coding things properly).  I also don't consider this a bug... just a
>behavior anomaly.
>
>
>Details:
>
>Server: IC 4.8.5, tested with TRAFFIC low and TRAFFIC rpc, apache 1.3.24, 
>Solaris 2.8
>Clients: Solaris 2.8 w/Netscape Communicator 4.61 and 6.1
>             Linux 2.4.10 w/mozilla .9.9.x and 1.0, opera 5.0, and Galeon 0.12
>
>file.html contains mostly just HTML, except for:
>
>[set whatever]ABC[/set]
>
>in order to store "ABC" in users' sessions for future menu searches.
>
>
>In the bar_link routine in catalog_before.cfg, after the initial variable 
>declarations,
>and just before LINK:, I have:
>
>my $whatever = $Scratch->{whatever};
>
>so that I can include it in menu links.
>
>
>It works repeatedly on the server browsing with Netscape 4.61.  However,
>on the server using Netscape 6.1, as well as on a Linux client using various
>versions of mozilla, Opera, and Galeon, it does not seem to store the scratch
>variable in the session IF there are failures (at least in the case of missing
>images).  Nothing shows up in the IC logs, but the apache logs contain, of 
>course:
>
>... File does not exist: /the/apache/htdocs/blah/images/thumb/filename.jpg
>
>Add /the/apache/htdocs/blah/images/thumb/filename.jpg, and everything is fine.
>
>Please let me know if I seem to be doing something stupid with [set ...] 
>or $Scratch,
>otherwise, I'm happy.

Unless you are using IC as an http server, which I have heard rumor is 
possible, IC completes all its processing before handing off output to 
Apache, so I don't see how a broken image link could have any bearing on 
IC's correct function. What's more, I have ample first-hand experience with 
a variety of browsers and a wide range of server configurations to back 
this up.

- Ed L.


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