2.5 - requestAction routes to wrong URL when prefixes are set.

[thinkingmedia]

Assume you have a prefix set for json for a controller's action called index. If you use requestAction during that request it will have the json prefix set, and it shouldn't.

Assuming you're using the default routes from CakePHP.

Example controller

controller DocumentsController extends AppController {
       public json_index() {
           // json is a prefix
       }
}

contoller UsersController extends AppController {
       public find() {
           // has no prefix
       }
}

Now in the view json_index.ctp

 $data = $this->requestAction(array('controller'=>'users','action'=>'find'));

The above will generate the error /users/json_find action does not exist in Users controller.

This is a problem in a couple of ways. 1) The programmer has to add 'json'=>false to all requestAction calls. 2) If the programmer adds a new prefix all requestAction calls will break if the request has it set.

[dereuromark]

Maybe your expectation is wrong.
When setting an extension, it should probably keep it unless told otherwise.
Currently, the same is true for "admin" and "plugin" prefixed by the way.
They stay also the same unless explicitly changed or set to "false".

[thinkingmedia]

The most common place to use requestAction is in an element, and elements are intended for re-use. They shouldn't be tightly coupled to the current type of request being made.

An element that uses requestAction should only be coupled with the controller/action that its calling. How can an element know what current prefix is set?

I've run into this issue when rendering error handlers as an example. Errors need to generate their view in a wide range of requests types.

[markstory]

The issue here is that all reverse routed URLs inherit the the current prefix as the common case is generating URLs for redirects and links. A simple way around this issue is to use string URLs. Unlike 1.x, array URLs are less efficient than string URLs when used with requestAction() in 2.x.

[thinkingmedia]

Thanks Mark,

I didn't know strings would resolve the issue. That's good for me. I'll change my requests to use strings from now on.

[markstory]

Awesome, I'm going to close this as doing deeper surgery on the Router to handle this case will probably cause more trouble than it is worth. It may also break existing apps where people want the prefix to automatically apply itself.