Apache 2.2 logs to include # in web page access

[delar]

I can not seem to find an answer to this through Google, so I'm hoping I can get some help here. I have a requirement to track # (pound mark) web page access through the Apache 2.2 logs.

An example is:

http://www.test.com/test.cfm#SomeID

It has been requested that I compile a report using the Apache Logs to identify web page access statistics. The logs currently record the hit access to test.cfm but truncates the #SomeID information and I've been unable to find an Apache log command to include it.

Anyone have an idea on how to include the #SomeID information in the Apache Logs?

 

[Noway2]

Welcome to tek-tips!

I am not so sure that you can track these in the access log. The reason being is that I don't think that they are actually part of get request that is passed to the server. See the following page which describes how these are on-page bookmarks:

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000049.htm

In other words, they may actually only be interpolated at the client end, not the server end.

In order to confirm or show proof positive of this, you could run an experiment with a tool like Wireshark and show the actual GET request and verify that the string after the # mark is not transmitted as part of the request. In any case, it does not appear to be logged.

 

[feherke]

Hi

Noway2, for you would be enough to just sign your previous post without further words. Your handle already contains the answer : no way. ;-)

The browsers not send the hash part of the URL to the server.

For example when visiting this page, my request to [navy][ignore]

http://tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1678571#newpost

[/ignore][/navy] was sent as :

[b]GET[/b] [navy]/viewthread.cfm?qid=1678571[/navy] HTTP/1.1
[b]Host:[/b] [navy]tek-tips.com[/navy]
[b]User-Agent:[/b] Mozilla/5.0 [gray]...shortened this one...[/gray]
[b]Accept-Language:[/b] en-us,en;q=0.5
[b]Accept-Encoding:[/b] gzip, deflate
[b]DNT:[/b] 1
[b]Connection:[/b] keep-alive
[b]Cookie:[/b] __utma=[gray]...shortened this one...[/gray]
[b]Pragma:[/b] no-cache
[b]Cache-Control:[/b] no-cache

Then when I clicked the Reply To This Thread link to jump to the reply [tt]form[/tt], or in other words visited [navy][ignore]

http://tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1678571#post

[/ignore][/navy], absolutely no request was sent to the server.

That would mean, your only possibility is to write a JavaScript to send the hash in query string through AJAX, so the server can collect them.

Feherke.

http://feherke.github.com/

 

[ChrisHirst]

The browsers not send the hash part of the URL to the server.

That's about the size of it.

The '#' is a document fragment marker so is NOT part of the HTTP request and the server never receives that part of the URI.

Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Time flies like an arrow, however, fruit flies like a banana.
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[delar]

Thank you for the information.