Ref and relref emit page not found when used with page aliases

support
1

I have a page that has an alias configured, and I have tested that the alias works. However, when I try to create a link to the page

[some text]({{< ref "/path/to/alias" >}})

hugo emits REF_NOT_FOUND as it generates the page containing the ref shortcode. the same thing happens with relref. as I read the documentation the aliases should be generated first, so there should be a file there to find when the ref is parsed in a later page. Is this not supported?

2

https://gohugo.io/content-management/cross-references/#use-ref-and-relref

The ref and relref shortcodes require a single parameter: the path to a content document, with or without a file extension, with or without an anchor.

Both shortcodes expect a path to a file within the content directory.

3

Since aliases are supposed to allow you to move a page, one would think that links to that moved page would continue to work. This behavior means that I have to hunt through and find any internal references and change them at the same time, even though I am adding in an alias.

1 Like
4

Aliases allow you to create multiple URLs for a page.

If you want to “move” a page, consider specifying slug or url in front matter.

5

As I read those front matter params, that would override everything. my hope was that I could support links going to the old location even as I reorganize the site and some content ends up in new locations.

6

with ikiwiki I would have done this by dropping a file that just contained the line

[[!meta redir="/path/to/new/file"]]

in the old location as I moved the content to the new location. is there a short code that I am not seeing that is similar for hugo?

7

I would move the content to its new canonical path in the content directory and add an alias to its old URL.

8

Yes, that’s what I tried to describe doing in my first post. The problem is that all the links to it break.

9

I think we are not communicating very well.

Let’s say I have an article at content/article/foo.md and I want to move it to content/article/bar.md

mv content/article/foo.md content/article/bar.md

Now I want to make sure that the content can be reached at the original URL as well as the new URL.

content/article/bar.md

+++
title = 'Bar'
date = 2022-07-11T10:48:41-07:00
draft = false
aliases = ['/article/foo/']
+++

Then use the new content path in the ref or relref shortcode.

content/article/test.md

+++
title = 'Test'
date = 2022-07-11T10:53:29-07:00
draft = false
+++

{{< relref “/article/bar.md” >}}
10

Yes, we’ve now come full circle, and I think I do understand. It means I have to grep the entire site for all instances of ‘[(rel)]ref "article[/]"’ and change them to bar. For a small site that is reasonable. As it grows bigger, this is more burdensome. That’s why I was hoping the ref would match against the aliases, then I can do just as you describe, and it Just Works. Alternately, some function like ikiwiki’s meta redir is an acceptable solution.

1 Like
11

I defined an aliasref shortcode that is called like ref {{< aliasref “/path/to/alias” >}}

{{/*
  renames considering defined aliases - https://discourse.gohugo.io/t/ref-and-relref-emit-page-not-found-when-used-with-page-aliases/39451
*/}}
{{- $alias := .Get 0 -}}
{{- $pages := where .Site.Pages "Aliases" "intersect" (slice $alias) -}}
{{- if gt (len $pages) 0 -}}
  {{- $page := index $pages 0 -}}
  {{- $url := $page.RelPermalink -}}
  {{- $url | safeURL -}}
{{- else -}}
  {{- errorf "No page found with alias '%s'" $alias -}}
  {{- range .Site.Pages -}}
    {{- if .Params.aliases -}}
      {{- warnf "Page %s has aliases: %s" .RelPermalink .Params.aliases -}}
    {{- end -}}
  {{- end -}}
  {{- ref . $alias | safeURL -}}
{{- end -}}