I am new to php. I am trying to debug something in joomla based website. the file path I want to go is something like
http://url/index.php/abcd/efgh/hijk?tmpl=component
I donno how to go forward with '/abcd/efgh/ijkl' . Because index.php is a file and there is no clue for /abcd/efgh/hijk
Joomla routes are based on the menu item alias which identifies the component, which is responsible for rendering the main page content. So if you know what you clicked on, find the very same menu item in the menu manager and you'll be able to inspect it. The url is built like this:
index.php/top-level-menu-alias/next-level-menu-alias/third-level/
If the component requires parameters, and the component's router.php is doing its job, you might find (at least some of ) the parameters appended:
index.php/top-level-menu-alias/next-level-menu-alias/third-level/some-component-params
So abcd is definitely the alias of a top level menu item. Open your menu manager, find it, then look for the next part and so on until you get to a "leaf" menu item. All extra data on the url will be the component params.
Once you know the component and the menu item, you can change the paramters from the menu item or look up the code. In order to find the code, just look for the real non-sef url in the menu item, it will look something like this:
index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=116
com_content is the component, i.e. look for it under components/com_content. article is the view name, it will be under the component's root/view/article and the actual markup in the subfolder tmpl.
&tmpl=component
tells Joomla to render the component using your template's component.php instead of index.php. This typically renders only the component and libraries, but no modules. Your template is located under /templates/template_name.