Repeated use of :sections breaks permalink

[stefanv]

Using this setting:

permalinks:
  posts: "/:sections[1]/:sections[last]"

I expect output paths of the form /section_one/section_last/index.html, but instead a lot of files are published to the root of the public folder.

Using other variables work fine, e.g.:

  posts: "/:sections[1]/:section"

What version of Hugo are you using (hugo version)?

hugo v0.104.3-58b824581360148f2d91f5cc83f69bd22c1aa331 linux/amd64 BuildDate=2022-10-04T14:25:23Z VendorInfo=gohugoio

Does this issue reproduce with the latest release?

Yes

[jmooring]

Clarification...

First, the permalinks setting in site configuration does not apply to section pages. See this proposal.

Second, the permalink needs to be unique for each page, otherwise one page will clobber another.

Example 1 - Bad (demonstrates pages being clobbered)

content/
├── posts/
│   ├── _index.md
│   ├── post-1.md
│   ├── post-2.md
│   └── post-3.md
└── _index.md

site configuration

[permalinks]
posts = '/:sections[1]/:sections[last]'  # this will not be unique for each page

command

$ hugo --printPathWarnings

WARN 2022/11/04 12:29:29 Duplicate target paths: /index.html (4)

$ tree public

public/
├── posts/
│   └── index.html
└── index.html

Example 2 - Good (but demonstrates the bug)

content/
├── posts/
│   ├── _index.md
│   ├── post-1.md
│   ├── post-2.md
│   └── post-3.md
└── _index.md

site configuration

[permalinks]
posts = '/:sections[1]/:sections[last]/:slug'

command

$ hugo --printPathWarnings
$ tree public

public/
├── post-1/
│   └── index.html
├── post-2/
│   └── index.html
├── post-3/
│   └── index.html
├── posts/
│   └── index.html
└── index.html

The issue as reported is valid, as these files are dumped in the root instead of in a section.

[stefanv]

I still don't think the original behavior is correct, despite resulting in non-unique filenames.

[jmooring]

@stefanv That's why I wrote

The issue as reported is valid

[jmooring]

Minimal reproducible example:

git clone --single-branch -b hugo-github-issue-10377 https://github.com/jmooring/hugo-testing hugo-github-issue-10377
cd hugo-github-issue-10377
hugo && tree public

content/
├── posts/
│   ├── foo/
│   │   ├── bar/
│   │   │   ├── baz/
│   │   │   │   ├── _index.md
│   │   │   │   ├── post-1.md
│   │   │   │   ├── post-2.md
│   │   │   │   └── post-3.md
│   │   │   └── _index.md
│   │   └── _index.md
│   └── _index.md
└── _index.md

site config

[permalinks]
posts = '/:sections[1]/:sections[last]/:slug'

Expected output:

public/
├── foo/
│   └── baz/
│       ├── post-1/
│       │   └── index.html
│       ├── post-2/
│       │   └── index.html
│       └── post-3/
│           └── index.html
├── posts/
│   ├── foo/
│   │   ├── bar/
│   │   │   ├── baz/
│   │   │   │   └── index.html
│   │   │   └── index.html
│   │   └── index.html
│   └── index.html
└── index.html

Actual output:

public/
├── post-1/
│   └── index.html
├── post-2/
│   └── index.html
├── post-3/
│   └── index.html
├── posts/
│   ├── foo/
│   │   ├── bar/
│   │   │   ├── baz/
│   │   │   │   └── index.html
│   │   │   └── index.html
│   │   └── index.html
│   └── index.html
└── index.html

[bep]

Yea, it's a bug and it will be fixed soonish.

[stefanv]

valid

Apologies, @jmooring, I missed that last sentence.

[github-actions]

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