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January 29, 2004

You say "referrer", I say...

You say "referrer", I say "referer"....

There has always been a curiosity in CGI scripting (with Perl in my
case) with a standard Environment variable - Referer. The issue has
been that it is misspelled. Referrer is correct - as far as the
dictionary goes, but in CGI standard Environment variables, it is
missing the second r - referer.

This doesn't seem like a big deal to you, but if you have ever programmed on the web and needed to access this variable, it's one of those things you always forget, can easily miss, and never remember which way is right. You can count on burning extra time getting it straight.

Finally, I see that the dictionary at reference.com validates the fact
that this is an oddity.

This is the standard definition for "referrer".

For "referer" we are given:

referer

(world-wide web) A misspelling of "referrer" which somehow
made it into the HTTP standard. A given web page's referer (sic) is the URL of whatever web page contains the link that the user followed to the current page. Most browsers pass this information as part of a request.

I'm a geek - what can I say... I'm somewhat satisfied to know this
"error" is documented outside my knowledge. Thanks to whomever made
this entry!

Posted by gcrgcr at January 29, 2004 9:42 AM

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