# UIBUILDER and URL case sensitivity
**URL:** https://discourse.nodered.org/t/uibuilder-and-url-case-sensitivity/81019
**Category:** General
**Tags:** uibuilder
**Created:** [4 September 2023 02:06 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/uibuilder-and-url-case-sensitivity/81019 "2023-09-04T02:06:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@annuello](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/annuello)
#### Post date: [4 September 2023 02:06 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/uibuilder-and-url-case-sensitivity/81019/1 "2023-09-04T02:06:26Z")
I have some uibuilder instances where I use mixed-case in the URL publish point. E.g. "myTarget" When entering the correct URL, everything works as expected. If a user enters the URL with non-matching case (e.g. "mytarget", "MYTARGET", etc) the HTML (and presumably .js too) loads but the uibuilder websocket fails to make a connection to NodeRED.
There is some "difference of case-sensitivity behaviour" between the websocket vs the general http engine. I'm not clever enough to know exactly which component is responsible for what - maybe the http is served by the NodeRED engine rather than the uibuilder node.
Is there a setting in either uibuilder or NodeRED which forces URL case-sensitivity? I'd prefer that mismatching case results in complete failure to load the page, rather than the current "partially loaded but broken websocket" behaviour.
Annuello.
---
### Author:  [@TotallyInformation](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/TotallyInformation)
#### Post date: [4 September 2023 09:17 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/uibuilder-and-url-case-sensitivity/81019/2 "2023-09-04T09:17:45Z")
Interesting. Not come across that before and I'll admit that I've not tried it.
A quick test shows that [socket.io](http://socket.io) makes the first part of the handshake (over http) just fine. But then it fails to "upgrade" the connection to websockets. It gets a response from the server:
```auto
{"code":1,"message":"Session ID unknown"}
```
So it seems that the issue is that Node-RED's web servers are case insensitive but the websocket connection in [Socket.IO](http://Socket.IO) isn't.
I'll have to investigate whether it is possible to make Node-RED's web servers case sensitive. I'll also do a bit of research around [Socket.IO](http://Socket.IO) case sensitivity.
May not be too helpful to you right now, but my recommendation is to avoid upper case in web URL's completely. Use `-` as a separator instead. You may, for example, hit other issues with proxy servers or when using Windows-based servers vs Linux-based ones.
* * *
By the way, the w3c specs on URL's say that the PATH element SHOULD be considered case-sensitive but the scheme and domain are not. So it actually seems to be Node-RED's web servers in error here.
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### Author:  [@TotallyInformation](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/TotallyInformation)
#### Post date: [4 September 2023 10:10 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/uibuilder-and-url-case-sensitivity/81019/3 "2023-09-04T10:10:08Z")
> [@annuello](#):
>
> I'd prefer that mismatching case results in complete failure to load the page
Hi again. Done some research. To make case-sensitive routing apply to Node-RED you could try adding `'case sensitive routing': true,` to the `httpServerOptions` in settings.js - however, I've not yet tested this and I don't know whether it will consistently work due to how ExpressJS works. If it doesn't work (try it on an http-in/-out pair first before trying with uibuilder where I think it won't work), you will need to put in a request to the Node-RED devs to have an option added. This thread shows some of the complexities: [node.js - nodejs express - case sensitive URL's - Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21216523/nodejs-express-case-sensitive-urls).
For uibuilder itself, I will look to see if I can add a suitable flag to a future release, some while back, I split the ExpressJS handling for uibuilder into multiple separate routers for better isolation and config. I will need to add a flag to each of them. Shouldn't be too hard to do but obviously would be a breaking change to simply enforce it.
A new version of uibuilder is in preparation (v6.6) so I can try to include it in that. I'll consider changing the default in the next major release as a breaking change.
---
### Author:  [@TotallyInformation](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/TotallyInformation)
#### Post date: [4 September 2023 10:13 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/uibuilder-and-url-case-sensitivity/81019/4 "2023-09-04T10:13:55Z")
> [@annuello](#):
>
> There is some "difference of case-sensitivity behaviour" between the websocket vs the general http engine.
Also worth noting that the same issue applies to Dashboard. If you have Dashboard on its default path of `/ui/`, trying to access as `/UI/` loads the page outline but results in a blank page. In fact, it won't even load the [socket.io](http://socket.io) client library. I will raise as an issue.
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### Author:  [@annuello](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/annuello)
#### Post date: [4 September 2023 22:22 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/uibuilder-and-url-case-sensitivity/81019/5 "2023-09-04T22:22:40Z")
> [@TotallyInformation](#):
>
> To make case-sensitive routing apply to Node-RED you could try adding `'case sensitive routing': true,` to the `httpServerOptions` in settings.js - however, I've not yet tested this and I don't know whether it will consistently work due to how ExpressJS works.
I gave this a try and it works, both with an initial http-in/-out pair as well as uibuilder URLs. (I don't use Dashboard.) With the above param set as described and a non-matching URL is requested, NodeRED/ExpressJS responds with "`Cannot GET /myNonMatchingCase`", which is the behaviour I was initially expecting/hoping for. 👍
So I guess the issue can be described as two different things:
- ExpressJS default values do not following the SHOULD recommendation of the W3C. Given that case-sensitivity is not a MUST, we probably can't technically call it a bug. However, there is already a parameter available to change this behaviour. I agree that this departure from the recommended behaviour should at least be documented somewhere in NodeRED, with the step needed to make it conform to the SHOULD behaviour.
- SocketIO does not tolerate non-matching case when ExpressJS is configured for case-insensitivity. Given the SHOULD re case sensitivity, SocketIO not obliged to handle the non-matching case.
Thank you for your quick investigation, pointing me to a workable solution, and raising the core issue with the NodeRED team.
Annuello.
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### Author:  [@TotallyInformation](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/TotallyInformation)
#### Post date: [5 September 2023 00:56 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/uibuilder-and-url-case-sensitivity/81019/6 "2023-09-05T00:56:37Z")
Glad that worked, I must admit, I didn't think it would.
Good to know though. I'll probably still add the parameter to uibuilder and I'll update the docs since you can use a dedicated ExpressJS instance for uibuilder. So I need to document the equivalent parameter in the uibuilder section of settings.js.
Glad I could help.
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### Author:  [@system](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [19 September 2023 00:57 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/uibuilder-and-url-case-sensitivity/81019/7 "2023-09-19T00:57:06Z")
This topic was automatically closed 14 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
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### Author:  [@TotallyInformation](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/TotallyInformation)
#### Post date: [23 March 2024 14:49 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/uibuilder-and-url-case-sensitivity/81019/8 "2024-03-23T14:49:07Z")
Please note that UIBUILDER v7 has case sensitive URL's and routing turned on by default - _if you are using its custom server feature_ - to match both W3C guidelines and [Socket.IO](http://Socket.IO).