Beta 11 --> Beta 12: _format property in route definition

Migrating to Beta 12, some ajax functionality was not functioning as expected. The log messages reported an exception,

Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Exception\NotAcceptableHttpException: No route found for the specified format

Using a debugger to step through the function that throws the exception, I made guesses as to what was needed. Eventually, I stumbled on a fix.

In the .routing.yml file I changed the relevant route definition by removing the _format property as follows.

Before:

ajax.enable:
  path: /ajax/optimizely
  defaults:
    _controller: \Drupal\optimizely\AjaxEnable::enableDisable
    _title: Optimizely Administer AJAX
  requirements:
    _permission: administer optimizely
    _format: json

After:

ajax.enable:
  path: /ajax/optimizely
  defaults:
    _controller: \Drupal\optimizely\AjaxEnable::enableDisable
    _title: Optimizely Administer AJAX
  requirements:
    _permission: administer optimizely

Unfortunately, searching through the Drupal and the Symfony docs, I have not found anything to help me understand why this change to the route definition makes a critical difference.

From the module's point of view, it looks as though the property is actually not needed. The client-side JavaScript that makes the request to the server sets json as the dataType. And the server-side code always instantiates a JsonResponse object to pass back.

Beta 11 --> Beta 12: Leading slash required in paths for "Add Alias" page (and elsewhere)

The Add Alias page that can be accessed via admin/config/search/path/add  now requires that values entered for both of the fields Existing System Path and Path Alias must start with a leading slash. Otherwise, the form does not validate.

When filling in the form manually, error messages are displayed to that effect, so it's clear what the problem is.

However, when this is being done programmatically in an automated Testing case, it's not at all obvious what went wrong.

Here's a piece of original code to create a path alias to an existing node, written for a subclass of WebTestBase:

  $edit = array();
  $edit['source'] = 'node/' . $node->id();
  $edit['alias'] = $this->randomMachineName(10);
  $this->drupalPostForm($this->addAliasPage, $edit, t('Save'));

 And here's the corrected code:

  $edit = array();
  $edit['source'] = '/node/' . $node->id();
  $edit['alias'] = '/' . $this->randomMachineName(10);
  $this->drupalPostForm($this->addAliasPage, $edit, t('Save'));

---

There seems to be an overall pattern that paths relative to the site root must now start with a slash. Besides these fields for the Add Alias page, I wrote in a previous post about such a requirement in calls to some methods of class AliasManager. And there's recent mention of this in Update the DB dump to have a leading slash for the frontpage.

Beta 11 --> Beta 12: AliasManager expects leading slash

As soon as I enabled the Optimizely module under Beta 12, I'd get the normal setup messages from the module, but then followed by this error.

The website encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later.

There was no other indication on the page of what had gone wrong. Moreover, the site would be completely unusable such that I could not even browse to the front page.

Eventually, I stumbled on a way to access the log. By deleting the directory for the module after the error occurred and using drush to clear cache, the site became usable again.

The log showed this message:

InvalidArgumentException: Source path node has to start with a slash. in Drupal\Core\Path\AliasManager->getAliasByPath() (line 191 of /var/www/html/opti/core/lib/Drupal/Core/Path/AliasManager.php).

This made me realize that the parameter in my calls to getAliasByPath() has to start with a leading slash. This also applies to the sibling method getPathByAlias().

So, for example, I revised the following function,

trait LookupPath  {

  static function lookupPathAlias($path) {

    $alias = \Drupal::service('path.alias_manager')->getAliasByPath($path); 
    return (strcmp($alias, $path) == 0) ? FALSE : $alias;
  }
} 


to call a new helper routine.

trait LookupPath  {

  static function lookupPathAlias($path) {

    $path = LookupPath::checkPath($path);
    $alias = \Drupal::service('path.alias_manager')->getAliasByPath($path);
    return (strcmp($alias, $path) == 0) ? FALSE : $alias;
  }

  static function checkPath($path) {
    return ($path[0] == '/') ? $path : '/' . $path;
  }
}


The fix was simple enough once I saw the error message in the log. The difficulty lay in getting to the log in the first place!

"The RSA host key for git.drupal.org has changed"

Just now when I tried to git push to drupal.org I got a long warning message that started with the following.

The RSA host key for git.drupal.org has changed, and the key for the corresponding IP address 140.211.10.43 is unknown.

The article  Drupal.org Git Server Migration  and its comments give a good explanation and discussion about how drupal.org has migrated to different servers as of early July.

The steps I took to fix the issue on my Linux Mint system were as follows, where the -R option for ssh-keygen means "remove the keys".

# ssh-keygen -R git.drupal.org
# ssh-keygen -R 140.211.10.43

# git fetch

The authenticity of host 'git.drupal.org (140.211.10.43)' can't be established.

RSA key fingerprint is 16:f5:44:6c:a1:c6:be:72:cd:98:b5:b7:7d:26:d6:14.

Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes


After that, there were no further warnings in using git to access drupal.org.

Instead of git fetch probably any git command that accesses the remote repo would have the same effect, such as git pull or git clone.

Source:

Drupal.org Git Server Migration
https://www.drupal.org/node/2529356

Beta 10 --> Beta 11: String::checkPlain() moved to SafeMarkup::checkPlain()

It turns out that my blog post of last week was completely wrong in claiming that migrating the Optimizely module from Beta 10 to Beta 13 did not require any code changes. In fact, doing so completely breaks the site as soon as the module is enabled.

I'm not sure what went wrong during the migration. I must have had a brain burp and copied the wrong release into the test directory.

In any case, I have backtracked to Beta 11 and successfully migrated to it by making one coding change.

Method checkPlain() has been moved from class

  Drupal\Component\Utility\String

 to

  Drupal\Component\Utility\SafeMarkup