| Unique
IDs and Full Paths
Unique
IDs
Full Paths
Identifying Full Paths and Unique IDs
Resources
Unique
IDs
Web
Crossing assigns unique ID numbers to users, folders, chat rooms,
and discussions when they are created. The idea is to take a short
unique ID and map it to the underlying object so Web Crossing
can find it quickly. A uniqueID is a hexadecimal number (base-16,
commonly used in computer applications).
You
won't see unique IDs for users unless you export a discussion
(and look at the SGML format) or a user
list (and choose "unique IDs" in the list of user attributes
to export). However, unique IDs for discussions and folders are
visible at the end of URLs all over Web Crossing. It's the seven-digit
number beginning with a period and, usually, "ee." Some
examples are .ee6b9d8 or .ee6b295.
The
advantage of using unique IDs in URLs you construct are three:
- If
you move items around within your forum, your links will still
work if you've used a unique ID to construct the link.
- If
you use very long folder and discussion names, you won't exceed
the 255-character limit on URLs imposed by some browsers.
- You
can link to a specific discussion or even a specific message
in that discussion, which you can't do with Full Paths.
You
can find a unique ID for any individual chat room, folder, or
discussion by going to that location and checking the location
bar in your browser for the seven-digit hex number at the end
of the URL, or by exporting a list using
Export.
Unique
IDs are always identified by a leading period.
Full
Paths
Full
Paths are simply the full names of all the folders in which a
another folder lies. For instance, if you have a folder named
Books, and inside that, Fiction Books, and inside that, Women,
and inside that, a folder named Feminist Fiction, the Full Path
to that folder would be:
/Books/Fiction
Books/Women/Feminist Fiction
To actually
use this in an URL, however, it needs to be a folder you're
referencing, (it doesn't work with discussions or messages), and
it needs to be URL-encoded. This means that URL-unfriendly characters
are "escaped" with different ones the browser can handle.
So a space is URL-encoded and changed to "%20" in each
instance. Using URL-encoding, our Full Path now looks like this:
/Books/Fiction%20Books/Women/Feminist%20Fiction
Full
Paths are always identified by a leading slash.
Identifying
URL-Encoded Full Paths and Unique IDs
If you
want to find the Unique IDs and Full Paths for everything in your
site, go to the top level of your site and choose Export (OR to
the Control Panel > Site Management >
Export site information). From there, choose Unique
IDs and Paths for all Folders and Discussions. A text file
called expPaths will be generated in your webx directory
containing both the Unique ID numbers and the URL-encoded Full
Paths for all your Web Crossing locations.
Resources
Web CrossingFAQ:
Sysop
Documentation
Sysop
Control Panel
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