This is a link to a non-existent page in the root directory: [[/root_page_test]] (\[[/root\_page\_test]])
-When you click on it to create the page, you get *Error: bad page name*. Because \[[/root_page_test]] is a valid wikilink, shouldn't it be able to create pages too? --[[sabr]]
+When you click on the question mark to create the page, you get *Error: bad page name*. It's a valid [[wikilink]], shouldn't it create the page? --[[sabr]]
+
+> Is it a valid wikilink? Should Iki prevent the page from being created? --[[sabr]], 2 months later
+
+This type of page name (with leading slash) also gets created by the aggregate plugin: /cgi-bin/ikiwiki.cgi?page=%2FCalculated_Risk&from=news%2FAll_Stories&do=create I'm now pretty convinced that Iki should handle this without error. I'll investigate if I can find the time.
+
+> As documented on [[ikiwiki/subpage/linkingrules]], such an absolute
+> link works perfectly when the linked page already exists.
+>
+> The CGI behaviour is thus not consistent with the general linking
+> rules, which is annoying for me : I'm using templates to generate
+> links to pages that may not exist yet, and I would like the "right"
+> path to be selected by default, instead of the usual
+> <current>/subdir/subpage, when a user clicks the "?" link to create
+> the missing page ; that's why I'm using absolute paths.
+>
+>> Totally agree, this had only not been addressed due to lack of time on
+>> my part. (I have about 50 ikiwiki things on my todo list.) --[[Joey]]
+>
+> Anyway, having the CGI consider invalid an otherwise valid wikilink
+> seems a bit weird to me, so I had a look to the code, and here is a
+> patch that should fix this issue ; I proceeded the only way I could
+> find to prevent side-effects : the only place where I use `$origpage`
+> is a match, so no function at all is fed with a `$page` with
+> leading slash :
+>
+> -- intrigeri
+
+
+ diff --git a/IkiWiki/CGI.pm b/IkiWiki/CGI.pm
+ index 99cead6..23d9616 100644
+ --- a/IkiWiki/CGI.pm
+ +++ b/IkiWiki/CGI.pm
+ @@ -305,9 +305,11 @@ sub cgi_editpage ($$) {
+ my $page=$form->field('page');
+ $page=possibly_foolish_untaint($page);
+ if (! defined $page || ! length $page ||
+ - file_pruned($page, $config{srcdir}) || $page=~/^\//) {
+ + file_pruned($page, $config{srcdir})) {
+ error("bad page name");
+ }
+ + my $origpage=$page;
+ + $page =~ s#^/##;
+
+ my $baseurl=$config{url}."/".htmlpage($page);
+
+ @@ -425,6 +427,7 @@ sub cgi_editpage ($$) {
+ $from ne $form->field('from') ||
+ file_pruned($from, $config{srcdir}) ||
+ $from=~/^\// ||
+ + $origpage=~/^\// ||
+ $form->submitted eq "Preview") {
+ @page_locs=$best_loc=$page;
+ }
+
+
+> [[Applied|done]]. BTW, I also accept full git changesets, if you like
+> having your name in commit logs. :-)
+
+>> Thanks. I'm considering setting up a public Git repository with topic branches, so that :
+
+>> - I can simply ask you to pull from there, next time
+>> - I have a tool to go on learning the beast (i.e. Git)
+
+>> -- intrigeri
+
+[[!tag patch]]