Freecodecamp: Pathnames are case sensitive

[moT01]

/learn is not the same as /LEARN or /LeArN. The second two take you to user profiles, I believe they are the same user profiles. Just starting an issue about it, I haven't looked into it at all.

[jordanliu]

Steps to reproduce, please?

[tabaddor]

Should pathnames be case sensitive? Is what you are saying that all routes /learn, /LEARN, /LeArN, should all take you to the same path?

[b0c0de]

@moT01 As per what I was able to find on StackOverflow, Case-sensitive URLs are a web-standard and GitHub does not allow any changes so, yes, there will be different web addresses if you type it differently.

[ojeytonwilliams]

While using different cases does change the request, it's up to the server which page it sends back. For example, this issue can be reached by going to https://github.com/freecodecamp/freecodecamp/issues/38850 as well as https://github.com/FREECODECAMP/freecodecamp/issues/38850.

The problem is that, as Tom said, someone has a variant of /LEARN as their username. They would need to be told if we were going to change it. I think this has happened before, though, when someone had 404 as their username.

[thecodingaviator]

I totally agree that this is a problem in progress, but we don't know when we might add a link or something that clashes with another user in the future. I think changing the format to freecodecamp.org/u/username is a way to future proof against these problems.
cc: @raisedadead

[ojeytonwilliams]

@thecodingaviator if we can do that, it would simplify the client code and cut down on the number of unavoidable 404s. Mrugesh will know if there's a reason not to beyond "it'll be a complicated rewrite".

[raisedadead]

We will not be using /u/username pattern, there are a lot of backlinks that will be broken.

We also reserve the right to claim a path for our use as needed. Its on the user's part to NOT choose that is something unconventional.

Practically why would you choose a username 'LEARN'?

We have claimed paths in the past, by sending a notification to users for the change.

That said, this is a valid issue, we should add a middleware to make paths case-insentive. I am not sure yet, but this would mean the change can be at the client level as well, in addition to the API separately.

[ruchivora]

I think solution to this problem can be , before hitting the end point the path name should be converted to appropriate format . i.e if the path should always be in lower case then before hitting the end point convert the path name to lower case and then hit the corresponding end point

[ojeytonwilliams]

Hi @ruchivora that sounds reasonable. If you've got time, a PR would be very welcome.

[Easyvipin]

Yes ,The path name is case sensitive ,although it should work fine in localhost , but if you deploy to some hosting site ,it will generate an internal server error.

[godslayer201]

Is this issue still requiring help? Would like to work on this.

[ojeytonwilliams]

Hey @godslayer201, yes, this is still open. If you want to work on it, that would be great.