[thelist] Site Root & Document Root

[Keith]

> I may be misunderstanding entirely, but the three main ways we can
> refer to addresses are:
> 
> --  a fully-qualified absolute address ("http://www.yadda...")
> 
> --  an address relative to the root of the site on the server
> 
> --  an address relative to the document requesting the file
> 
> That last one, the document-relative address, can change with each
> document that requests dependent files, so I'm not sure what a
> "document root" would be. I'm probably just not understanding what's
> being sought, though, sorry.
> 
> jd

You're right, it is confusing. But you're right only on the first definition 
in certain circles. If the conversation includes server addressing, 
particularly on a RaQ, "root" refers to the /root/ directory at the base 
of the server tree since it is named "root", site.root to one level 
above document.root which commonly refers to the root of public 
documents on the site. 

The box Marcus is working on has the path structure
root/home/sites/site101/web
He's referring to "site101" as the site.root and "web" as being the 
root of public documents in that tree. That's common nomenclature 
on a RaQ3/4 where the "site" technically begins at site101 and 
public documents (document.root) begin at web.

If I understood Marcus's problem, he wants a siteManagement tool 
that will download every directory in site101 and yet still see "web" 
as the starting directory for the site. siteManagement tools assume 
that the base directory you point them to is the site's root and build 
relative addressing from that point, and in his need that is not the 
case. 

It's not really an uncommon problem. Suppose you store sensitive 
files at site101 to keep the webserver from delivering them to 
prying eyes. You want to download those files to a local 
development environment since scripts within the domain will need 
to read the data in those files. I agree with Marcus, I've yet to see a 
siteManagement tool that will do that and not get confused about 
where the site's public root begins. 

keith


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