doc/todo/pagespec_expansions.mdwn



A couple of suggestions for improving the usefulness of pagespecs:

@ to match [^/]* (i.e. all pages exactly one level below this one)
initial ./ to mean "from the page the pagespec is running from".
This would require some architectural changes and a change to the
interface for pagespec_match. What do you think? I have
lots of pages a/b/c.mdwn that inline "a/b/c/*".

--Ethan

I want this too, so that the [[examples]] can use pagespecs that don't
have to be changed when the pages are moved around. I don't know how I
feel about the "@" thing, but "./" seems good. I take it you've looked at
how to implement it?
It's worth mentioning that there's a bit of an inconsistency; wikilinks
match relative by default and absolute if prefixed with a "/", while
pagespecs match absolute by default. It would be nice to clear up that
inconsistency somehow, it's on my little list of things in ikiwiki that
arn't ideal. :-) --[[Joey]]

I've looked at how to implement "./", yes, and I was a little hesitant
to disturb the elegant implementation of pagespecs as it is now. That's
why I wrote this todo item rather than just a patch. :) As I see it,
the simplest thing to do is check globs when building the pagespec
expression and translate "./foo" to "$from.'/foo'" in the resulting
expression, and then add the $from paramater to pagespec_match. This does
require an API change for all plugins which use pagespecs but hopefully
it should be minor. I will work on a patch tomorrow.
My use case for "@" (which is kind of a crummy symbol, but whatever) is
my projects page. I want to inline
"summary" or "introduction" pages that are exactly one level below the
inlining page, but not tarballs or other junk that might be in
subdirectories. (The issue is confounded here because of my index.mdwn
patch, but the principle is the same.) I chose "@" because it's similar in
physical shape to "*" but enclosed, suggesting limitations. I also thought
it would be useful in simplifying hacks like in [[plugins/map]] but I see
now that I was mistaken.. "four or fewer levels deep" would be
"@ or @/@ or @/@/@ or @/@/@/@". Well, I think it has a certain appeal but
I can see why it might not be much of an improvement. :) --Ethan

OK, I took a shot at implementing the changes. I was thinking about making
pagespecs relative by default but I couldn't decide whether page
foo/bar inlining * should match foo/bar/* or foo/*.
So I punted and left things as absolute, with ./* matching
foo/bar/*, which I think is pretty clear.
The patch is at ikidev
and you can see it work at
this page or
this page --Ethan