Is <base href tag necessary?

[lhungil]

As already mentioned, adding the base element just ensures any HTML compliant parser ĺsuch as a web browser) knows what base URL should be prepended to any COMPLETLY relative links (stuff like "image.jpg" and "stylesheet.css"). For web pages if all links to external resources are absolute ("https://example.com/image.jpg", "http://example.com/image.jpg", "//example.com/image.jpg") or SITE relative ("/image.jpg") it is not needed. For emails if all external links are absolute it is not needed.

For the following examples the URL requested by a browser (or other reader) is "http://example.com/folder/index.php" and the base element is not specified. A link to "image.jpg" should result in the browser requesting "http://example.com/folder/image.jpg". A link to "/image.jpg" should result in the browser requesting "http://example.com/image.jpg".

Zen Cart out-of-box currently uses a mixture of COMPLETELY relative links and absolute links. Internally Zen Cart knows what the BASE path is to physical images and the website relative path used to access those resources. Those are the FS_* and WS_* defines respectively in the "configure.php" files. These are used when generating both COMPLETELY relative and absolute links.

Can you guess what would happen in the future if a page was added at "http://example.com/folder/category/my-product-name-456.html"? Zen Cart will still generate COMPLETELY relative links as "image.jpg". The broswer will request "http://example.com/folder/category/image.jpg". But the image is physically at "/username/public_html/folder/image.jpg" not "/username/public_html/folder/category/image.jpg"; resulting in the web server returning a "HTTP 404 - Not Found".

So including the base element helps ensure COMPLETELY relative links generated by Zen Cart are loaded from the correct location. If desired (to avoid having to specify the anchor with the page - such as "index.php?main_page=index#anchor"), one CAN remove the base href from the web page template without any major issues when NO URLs outside the installation root are used.

[s_mack]

Can you guess what would happen in the future if a page was added at "http://example.com/folder/category/my-product-name-456.html"?

When would that come up though? Zen doesn't reference them like that, but rather: "http://example.com/folder/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3&products_id=378"

So... are we talking about SEO friendly hacked url's? Is that when I'd run into trouble?

[s_mack]

If desired (to avoid having to specify the anchor with the page - such as "index.php?main_page=index#anchor"), one CAN remove the base href from the web page template without any major issues when NO URLs outside the installation root are used.

So that would have been my other solution then, right? To specify the anchor links as you showed? I didn't know that. That would have been fine too and I'll keep that in mind, if I'm understanding you correctly.

[lhungil]

Virtual URLs (aka "alternate", "pretty", "friendly", "short", etc) are one common case. Not all Virtual URLs are for "SEO friendly" purposes, some are to comply with requirements or overcome restrictions in external software. Some third party modules adding a "page" in a subdolder are another case. Basically any scenario where the URL could contain a "sub-directory".


I suspect the base element is there as a "safety" feature because some of the Zen Cart code and some 3rd party modifications generate COMPLETELY relative URLs. In my experience the core development team strive to ensure Zen Cart will work for ALL users in as many scenarios as possible, thus the base element is added by the default template.


If leaving the base element... When the anchor link is stored in the DB, specifying as ahown in the previous post will work (there are some other programmatic solutions as well). If in a PHP file, would recommend using the Zen Cart function to generate the URL and add the anchor afterwards (provides best long term compatibility).


NOTE: I am not one of the core developers and am not speaking on their behalf. I am providing an answer based on my experience.The other people who have responded are also very knowledgable and should not be dismissed (and many of them are experienced Zen Cart consultants and / or developers).

[s_mack]

I have a better understanding now. Thank you very much.