[rt-users] Need help understanding mason and query args

[Kelly F. Hickel]

I'm trying to add bookmarkable urls to the Statistics stuff, and almost
have it working.  But, I don't seem to understand what mason is trying
to do with query args.  Mason seems to be doing what it's documented to
do, I just don't understand why, or what to do about it.

If you take the text below, and save it to /opt/rt3/local/html/foo.html,
and then go to the URL http://MYRT/foo.html?sMonth=2 then it will do
what I expect, the text area will show that the value of the sMonth arg
is two, and the pull downs showing the start date will display March 1,
2010 (ok, maybe that's odd, but this is a stripped down test).  

Now, if you chose a different month and hit the update button, when the
page gets built again, the sMonth arg is an array ref, with the new
value you selected, and the original value specified in the URL.  This
isn't what I expected, although reading the mason doc, it's supposed to
do this.

Now, I'm not a mason, apache, or web page developer normally, but most
of this has seemed straight forward, up to now.  I'm sure that I'm
missing something basic, can anyone tell me what it is?  (short words,
please! ;> )

Here's foo.html:

<& /Elements/Header, Title => loc("Test page") &>
<& /Elements/Tabs,  Title => loc("Test page") &>

<h3>Description</h3>
<p>This is a test page</p>
<form method="POST">


<table>
  <tr>
    <td>Start Date:</td>
    <td>
      <select name="sMonth" >
% for ($n=0;$n<=$#months;$n++){ 
% 	if ($sMonth eq $n){	
% 		$selected ="selected";
% 	}else {
% 		$selected ="";
%	}
	  <option  value=<% $n %> <% $selected %> ><% $months[$n]
%></option>
%}
      </select>
    </td>
    <td>
      <select name="sDay" >	
% for ($n=1;$n<=31;$n++){
% 	if ($sDay == $n ){
% 		$selected ="selected";
% 	}else {
% 		$selected ="";
%	}
	    <option  value=<% $n %> <% $selected %> ><% $n  %></option>
% }
      </select>
    </td>
    <td>
	  <select name="sYear">
% 
% for ($n=0;$n <= scalar @years-1;$n++){
%	if ($years[$n] == $sYear){
% 		$selected ="selected";
%	}else{
% 		$selected ="";
%	}
	  <option value=<% $years[$n] %> <% $selected %> ><% $years[$n]
%></option>
% }	  
	  </select>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>

<br>
<INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="<&|/l&>Update Page</&>"</INPUT>

<br>
% $debugtext .= "value of sMonth is |$sMonth|\n";
% $debugtext .= "ref of sMonth is " . ref($sMonth) . "\n";
% if (ref $sMonth) {$debugtext .= "join of sMonth is " . join(',',
@$sMonth) . "\n";}
<TEXTAREA NAME=debugarea COLS=50 ROWS=20><% $debugtext %></TEXTAREA>

</form>

<%ARGS>
$sMonth=>undef
$sDay=>undef
$sYear=>undef
</%ARGS>

<%INIT>
my $n;
my $selected;
my $debugtext="";
my @years =('2010', '2009', '2008', '2007', '2006', '2005', '2004',
'2003' ,'2003' ,'2002');
my @months=qw/Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec/;	  
my %monthsMaxDay = (
		 0 => 31,  # January
		 1 => 29,  # February, allow for leap year
		 2 => 31,  # March
		 3 => 30,  # April
		 4 => 31,  # May
		 5 => 30,  # June
		 6 => 31,  # July
		 7 => 31,  # August
		 8 => 30,  # September
		 9 => 31,  # October
		 10=> 30,  # November
		 11=> 31   # December
		 );

</%INIT>

-- 
Kelly F. Hickel
Senior Software Architect
MQSoftware, Inc
952.345.8677
kfh at mqsoftware.com