Odd Validation Error in list_cats tag

  • Lorelle

    (@lorelle)


    19 years, 1 month ago

    I’m getting a very strange validation error generated by my list_cats tag. It doesn’t appear on the HTML source page so it is something being “found” by the W3C validator.

    ....Thoughts on Life" href="index.php?cat=7&PHPSESSID=
    a84d6528665aea5240f15ed7f4fcca

    The template tag used is:

    <?php list_cats(FALSE, '', 'ID',
    'asc', '', FALSE, FALSE,
    FALSE, FALSE, TRUE,
    FALSE, FALSE, '', FALSE,
    '', '', '1,33',
    TRUE); ?>

    Since I can’t find it on my source page, I think this is very odd.

    Anyone familiar with this?

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
  • Thread Starter Lorelle

    (@lorelle)

    19 years, 1 month ago

    I just ran it through the W3C validator and it gave me this error:

    Please, validate your XML document first!
    Line 597
    Column 83
    The reference to entity "PHPSESSID" must end with the ';' delimiter.

    The tag ends with the ; and it’s copied out of the codex. Hmmm.

    fred

    (@fred)

    19 years, 1 month ago

    bump

    revbob

    (@revbob)

    19 years, 1 month ago

    You’re in luck. It sounds like the validation error on the search form. If it is, I just posted a workaround: http://blog.crispen.org/archives/2005/03/09/wordpress-validation-error-work-around/

    Note that the second workaround has the additional virtue that it’s dangerous! 😉

    Thread Starter Lorelle

    (@lorelle)

    19 years, 1 month ago

    This is serious stuff. Few questions – and I post them here and not in the article because they apply to WordPress issues.

    * What is it about the plugins that trigger these if it is the search form that is the culprit to begin with? Why would it matter?

    * How will I know which plugins use session tags? Is there a way to tell in the code or maybe we should start advising plugin authors to warn us or make a workaround.

    With nothing changed, all my plugins still active, I switched to Kubrick Theme and I don’t get the error —- oh, most of my plugins have to be “put” into the index.php, sdiebar.php, etc., before they are active. Well, I put two plugin references and the list categories template tag to run a test on it, since Default Theme validates. Bingo, there is the error.

    The only change I made was to add the following:
    – wp_list_cats
    – Coffee2Codes Custom Posts
    – Andreas Holstenson’s Related Links

    So I eliminated them one by one and isolated the error in the WordPress tag wp_list_cats. My first error isolated it to the wp_list_cats but I have no plugins set in the Default Theme now on my test. I can go through and turn off the plugins one by one, but I don’t have any call-outs to plugins in my test Theme.

    OH, wise one who is saving me here, now what?

    And I assume you’ve reported this to the mosquito catchers?

    revbob

    (@revbob)

    19 years, 1 month ago

    Well, it’s not like this is a bug (I’m replying as though I were a “wise one, which is a bit of a hoot, but anyway). PHP’s rewrite engine is doing just what it’s supposed to be doing: when you’re doing sessions, you need to pass session IDs around.

    The way I found the session stuff was to grep on “session” in the plugin directories. Here’s a line in stattraq.php that seems to be up to no good:

    if(!headers_sent()){@session_start();}

    Btw, I had erroneously fingered Theme Switcher, which does not use sessions. I’ve corrected it on my blogsite.

    Thread Starter Lorelle

    (@lorelle)

    19 years, 1 month ago

    It is a bug if it effects EVERY user and the integration of Plugins. Plugin authors have to be notified, a lot has to happen to fix this. I’ve let a few people know, but it would help a lot, since you understand words like grep (see, you is wise one) and I haven’t a clue what that is, to post a note on the bug reports…http://mosquito.wordpress.org/ should be the site.

    When the WordPress developers make their claim that the site validates, and then encourage plugins which invalidate…see, this is a little on the important side.

    Thanks so much. I’ve been fighting this for several days without an answer. You life saver and wise one.

    Thread Starter Lorelle

    (@lorelle)

    19 years, 1 month ago

    Okay, I’m even more confused. This error doesn’t come from WordPress, I’ve learned. It is a known bug in PHP. According to what I’ve been told, plugins that use PHP “sessions” activate this bug which causes a page not to validate. I’ve been told that WordPress is written as to NOT use PHP sessions.

    Yet, when I do my little ole testing on Kubrick, this is what I have repeatedly learned.

    * In its original form, it validates beautifully.

    * If a plugin is added, and that plugin uses PHPsessions, then it will “bork” on the validation.

    * If the plugins are removed, I am still getting a validation error and it isolates it to the wp_list_cats() tag.

    * In my test, I have two wp_list_cats() tags because I originally thought it might be how I was listing the parameters in the tag that might be causing the problem. So I deleted my version of the wp_list_cats() tag, leaving the default tag, and the validation passes.

    * So I replaced the default wp_list_cats() tag with my version, so it is the only one in the sidebar, and the validation error with PHP sessions is back.

    This is my tag:

    <li><a title="Thoughts on Life" href="index.php?cat=7">Journal Thoughts</a></li>
    <?php wp_list_pages('exclude=497&depth=1&sort_column=menu_order&title_li='); ?>

    * So I get rid of the link to my blog and leave wp_list_pages() since the errors are targeting the request for index.php?cat=7 and BINGO, with the wp_list_pages tag, it validates.

    * Leaving the wp_list_pages() tag in, I added back in the two plugins from the first borked validation WITHOUT the single link to the blog and …it passes the validation!!!!!

    Results
    My link reference uses index.php?cat=7 and this is the criminal that is “calling” sessions. To get the link, I clicked on the category for my blog and copied the link address directly from the address bar. This link will change when I finally get to activating permalinks on this test site, but why wouldn’t this work as it is?

    Mystery semi-solved. HELP!

    Thread Starter Lorelle

    (@lorelle)

    19 years, 1 month ago

    I’ve been trying techniques to get around the PHP session errors triggered by a link to the category, and the only way it is defeated is to HARD LINK with an absolute link to the category. So the link would be:

    <a
    href="http://example.com/wordpress/index.php?cat=7">
    Category</a>

    Anyone found a work around yet for linking to a category without permalinks that is relative rather than absolute? I don’t know why this triggers PHP sessions, but it’s painful.

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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