+
+> The point is exactly in the generalization, to provide a uniform interface for accessing structured data, no matter what the source of it, whether that be the meta plugin or some other plugin.
+
+> There were a few reasons for this:
+
+>1. In converting my site over from PmWiki, I needed something that was equivalent to PmWiki's Page-Text-Variables (which is how PmWiki implements structured data).
+>2. I also wanted an equivalent of PmWiki's Page-Variables, which, rather than being simple variables, are the return-value of a function. This gives one a lot of power, because one can do calculations, derive one thing from another. Heck, just being able to have a "basename" variable is useful.
+>3. I noticed that in the discussion about structured data, it was mired down in disagreements about what form the structured data should take; I wanted to overcome that hurdle by decoupling the form from the content.
+>4. I actually use this to solve (1), because, while I do use ymlfront, initially my pages were in PmWiki format (I wrote (another) unreleased plugin which parses PmWiki format) including PmWiki's Page-Text-Variables for structured data. So I needed something that could deal with multiple formats.
+
+> So, yes, it does cater to mostly my personal needs, but I think it is more generally useful, also.
+> --[[KathrynAndersen]]
+
+>> Is it fair to say, then, that `field`'s purpose is to take other
+>> plugins' arbitrary per-page data, and present it as a single
+>> merged/flattened string => string map per page? From the plugins
+>> here, things you then use that merged map for include:
+>>
+>> * sorting - stolen by [[todo/allow_plugins_to_add_sorting_methods]]
+>> * substitution into pages with Perl-like syntax - `getfield`
+>> * substitution into wiki-defined templates - the `pagetemplate`
+>> hook
+>> * substitution into user-defined templates - `ftemplate`
+>>
+>> As I mentioned above, the flattening can cause collisions (and in the
+>> `pagetemplate` case, even security problems).
+>>
+>> I wonder whether conflating Page Text Variables with Page Variables
+>> causes `field` to be more general than it needs to be?
+>> To define a Page Variable (function-like field), you need to write
+>> a plugin containing that Perl function; if we assume that `field`
+>> or something resembling it gets merged into ikiwiki, then it's
+>> reasonable to expect third-party plugins to integrate with whatever
+>> scaffolding there is for these (either in an enabled-by-default
+>> plugin that most people are expected to leave enabled, like `meta`
+>> now, or in the core), and it doesn't seem onerous to expect each
+>> plugin that wants to participate in this mechanism to have code to
+>> do so. While it's still contrib, `field` could just have a special case
+>> for the meta plugin, rather than the converse?
+>>
+>> If Page Text Variables are limited to being simple strings as you
+>> suggest over in [[forum/an_alternative_approach_to_structured_data]],
+>> then they're functionally similar to `meta` fields, so one way to
+>> get their functionality would be to extend `meta` so that
+>>
+>> \[[!meta badger="mushroom"]]
+>>
+>> (for an unrecognised keyword `badger`) would store
+>> `$pagestate{$page}{meta}{badger} = "mushroom"`? Getting this to
+>> appear in templates might be problematic, because a naive
+>> `pagetemplate` hook would have the same problem that `field` combined
+>> with `ymlfront` currently does.
+>>
+>> One disadvantage that would appear if the function-like and
+>> meta-like fields weren't in the same namespace would be that it
+>> wouldn't be possible to switch a field from being meta-like to being
+>> function-like without changing any wiki content that referenced it.
+>>
+>> Perhaps meta-like fields should just *be* `meta` (with the above
+>> enhancement), as a trivial case of function-like fields? That would
+>> turn `ymlfront` into an alternative syntax for `meta`, I think?
+>> That, in turn, would hopefully solve the special-fields problem,
+>> by just delegating it to meta. I've been glad of the ability to define
+>> new ad-hoc fields with this plugin without having to write an extra plugin
+>> to do so (listing books with a `bookauthor` and sorting them by
+>> `"field(bookauthor) title"`), but that'd be just as easy if `meta`
+>> accepted ad-hoc fields?
+>>
+>> --[[smcv]]
+
+>>> Your point above about cross-site scripting is a valid one, and something I
+>>> hadn't thought of (oops).
+
+>>> I still want to be able to populate pagetemplate templates with field, because I
+>>> use it for a number of things, such as setting which CSS files to use for a
+>>> given page, and, as I said, for titles. But apart from the titles, I
+>>> realize I've been setting them in places other than the page data itself.
+>>> (Another unreleased plugin, `concon`, uses Config::Context to be able to
+>>> set variables on a per-site, per-directory and a per-page basis).
+
+>>> The first possible solution is what you suggested above: for field to only
+>>> set values in pagetemplate which are prefixed with *field_*. I don't think
+>>> this is quite satisfactory, since that would still mean that people could
+>>> put un-scrubbed values into a pagetemplate, albeit they would be values
+>>> named field_foo, etc. --[[KathrynAndersen]]
+
+>>>> They can already do similar; `PERMALINK` is pre-sanitized to
+>>>> ensure that it's a "safe" URL, but if an extremely confused wiki admin was
+>>>> to put `COPYRIGHT` in their RSS/Atom feed's `<link>`, a malicious user
+>>>> could put an unsafe (e.g. Javascript) URL in there (`COPYRIGHT` *is*
+>>>> HTML-scrubbed, but "javascript:alert('pwned!')" is just text as far as a
+>>>> HTML sanitizer is concerned, so it passes straight through). The solution
+>>>> is to not use variables in situations where that variable would be
+>>>> inappropriate. Because `field` is so generic, the definition of what's
+>>>> appropriate is difficult. --[[smcv]]
+
+>>> An alternative solution would be to classify field registration as "secure"
+>>> and "insecure". Sources such as ymlfront would be insecure, sources such
+>>> as concon (or the $config hash) would be secure, since they can't be edited
+>>> as pages. Then, when doing pagetemplate substitution (but not ftemplate
+>>> substitution) the insecure sources could be HTML-escaped.
+>>> --[[KathrynAndersen]]
+
+>>>> Whether you trust the supplier of data seems orthogonal to whether its value
+>>>> is (meant to be) interpreted as plain text, HTML, a URL or what?
+>>>>
+>>>> Even in cases where you trust the supplier, you need to escape things
+>>>> suitably for the context, not for security but for correctness. The
+>>>> definition of the value, and the context it's being used in, changes the
+>>>> processing you need to do. An incomplete list:
+>>>>
+>>>> * HTML used as HTML needs to be html-scrubbed if and only if untrusted
+>>>> * URLs used as URLs need to be put through `safeurl()` if and only if
+>>>> untrusted
+>>>> * HTML used as plain text needs tags removed regardless
+>>>> * URLs used as plain text are safe
+>>>> * URLs or plain text used in HTML need HTML-escaping (and URLs also need
+>>>> `safeurl()` if untrusted)
+>>>> * HTML or plain text used in URLs need URL-escaping (and the resulting
+>>>> URL might need sanitizing too?)
+>>>>
+>>>> I can't immediately think of other data types we'd be interested in beyond
+>>>> text, HTML and URL, but I'm sure there are plenty.
+>>>>
+>>>> One reasonable option would be to declare that `field` takes text-valued
+>>>> fields, in which case either consumers need to escape
+>>>> it with `<TMPL_VAR FIELD_FOO ESCAPE=HTML>`, and not interpret it as a URL
+>>>> without first checking `safeurl`), or the pagetemplate hook needs to
+>>>> pre-escape.
+>>>>
+>>>> Another reasonable option would be to declare that `field` takes raw HTML,
+>>>> in which case consumers need to only use it in contexts that will be
+>>>> HTML-scrubbed (but it becomes unsuitable for using as text - problematic
+>>>> for text-based things like sorting or URLs, and not ideal for searching).
+>>>>
+>>>> You could even let each consumer choose how it's going to use the field,
+>>>> by having the `foo` field generate `TEXT_FOO` and `HTML_FOO` variables?
+>>>> --[[smcv]]
+
+>>> Another problem, as you point out, is special-case fields, such as a number of
+>>> those defined by `meta`, which have side-effects associated with them, more
+>>> than just providing a value to pagetemplate. Perhaps `meta` should deal with
+>>> the side-effects, but use `field` as an interface to get the values of those special fields.
+
+>>> --[[KathrynAndersen]]
sipb-www / ikiwiki.git / blobdiff