Ok, new issue...
I've changed usage inside of User.php from getText and getPrefixedText to getDBkey and getPrefixedDBkey.
However I notice an issue with the User functions themselves: We have a getName function, and additionally for awhile we've had a getTitleKey, but other than a single occurrence inside of Article.php, it's widely unused. That means that getName is used for both uniqueness testing, and display.
Obviously, because usernames are now stored in key form rather than text form we are going to need to separate the functional use of functions inside the User class for backend and display use.
We've got a few options here: A) Create a new function getTitle which returns the title object which the User matches, and make use of it's functions for the standard displays and other things. Of course this is bascialy the same as getUserPage. B) Change getName's definition to be the display form of a user's name, and getTitleKey to be the key form of the user's name. And change the large number of comparison functions inside of MediaWiki to use getTitleKey instead of getName. C) Create a new function getDisplayName, and have getName's definition changed to the key form of the user's name, and getDisplayName as the display form of the user's name. Depreciate the use of getTitleKey because of it's lack of use or need anymore (changing a single reference to it). And change the uses of getName as a display value inside of MediaWiki to use getDisplayName instead. D) Create two new functions for the key and display forms of the user's name. And depreciate the old functions, slowly changing use of them to the new functions in MW to keep compatibility.
I'm probably in favor of C, as if it's definition is changed to key form, all the backend testing and stuff will still work fine, and we then will only need to worry about changing the areas that the username is used for display. Which won't really be a problem if we miss anything, because if we end up missing one conversion, the system will simply be displaying a semi-ugly form with underscores inside of it and none of the case stuff picked by the user. And it'll still be likable and won't break anything in the backend.
Oh, ^_^ an interesting new ability due to switching to key form: SELECT user_editcount FROM `user`, `page` WHERE user_name=page_title AND page_namespace=2 AND page_id=3 In this example, page_id 3 is the userpage of my user's userpage. What does it do? Well, if you were on the userpage of a user and just had the page ID, you could now easily grab any information from the database on that user himself because page_name and user_name are stored in the same format instead of different formats. ^_^ Of course, this example isn't to useful, but I'm sure someone will find some use for the two being a match now.
Though it looks like I'm also going to have to add some more database stuff. * archives is going to need a ar_real field so that deleting a page doesn't break it's titling. * rev_user_text is going to need the same conversion that user_name underwent, and I'll also need to do some stuff inside the backend to change how the name of the user is displayed. * same goes for image_user_text, ipb_by_text, oi_user_text, rc_user_text, and ar_user_text
Oh, minor off topic. But what about putting a log_user_text in at some point. Honnestly I know of a few extensions which intended to allow certain things to be done by anons in addition to normal users, but which broke when anons were allowed use of them because anon users were not properly logged.
~Daniel Friesen(Dantman) of: -The Gaiapedia (http://gaia.wikia.com) -Wikia ACG on Wikia.com (http://wikia.com/wiki/Wikia_ACG) -and Wiki-Tools.com (http://wiki-tools.com)
DanTMan wrote:
Ok, B it is. I'll add another entry to updaters.inc when I get home and start by first converting all uses of getText in User.php to getDBkey. After the actual title stuff is built, we can track down all the places which use a displayable version of the name and make them use the displayname instead.
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~Daniel Friesen(Dantman) of: -The Gaiapedia (http://gaia.wikia.com) -Wikia ACG on Wikia.com (http://wikia.com/wiki/Wikia_ACG) -and Wiki-Tools.com (http://wiki-tools.com)
Simetrical wrote:
On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 2:43 AM, DanTMan dan_the_man@telus.net wrote:
B) Make use of getDBkey for identification of the user and have the update script refactor the users table to use underscores like it should instead of spaces.
The idea of having separate normalized/display names makes as much sense for users as for titles, certainly. This seems like the more logical option. It's not like we aren't going to have be doing rebuilding and repopulating of the page table to do this anyway, so why not the user table too?
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