Using a link with data-rel="dialog" will add the data-url attribute to a page. Using changePage() will not.
I was digging through a problem today, as you can see
over at my other post that revolved around different behaviour from clicking a link built with <a data-rel="dialog" href="#page"> versus using changePage($("#page"), {role: "dialog"});
Using a link, jQueryMobile automatically adds a data-url attribute to the page when it's loaded.
Using changePage, jQueryMobile does not. So my navigation was breaking.
I manually added my data-url attributes to fix this issue, but wanted to report it so that someone closer to the source can figure out why two similar methods produce different output.
If you click the button to open a dialog, then click the button inside, you see that the data-url is Undefined. If you click the link to open the dialog instead, the data-url is defined.
Realized this was the wrong place to file a bug report AFTER I posted it. Filing correctly now.