Re: [OT] & in URLs (was: Re: Templating System)

[Gisle Aas]

Michael Hanisch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> On Fri, 28 Jul 2000, Dave Jenkins wrote:
> 
> > > > Then you are wrong. :) You need to have &amp; in there, so that the
> > > > browser can turn it back from &amp; to & before sending the URL back
> > > > up to your server (or whichever server comes along).
> > > 
> > > Are you really positive about this?
> > 
> > <unlurk>
> > 
> > I had a problem with certain URLs on IE4 a while back: given a link like...
> > <A HREF="/cgi-bin/arse.cgi?action=hoot&section_id=3">
> > ... it was turning the '&sect' bit into a section symbol, causing the link not
> > to work!
> > 
> >  </unlurk>
> 
> Yuck.
> Anybody else with similar problems?

I've seen this with some older versions of Netscape too.  But that's a
browser bug.  The whole name need after & to be considered before
entity substitution is performed.

With current browsers you should see problems with URLs like this:

    <a href="foo?f=1&reg=3&sect=34">foo</a>

> I really believe my thoughts outlined in my original post are correct -
> but right now I am starting to worry...
> Personally I would attribute the described problem to a bug in IE4 - even
> if it parses the URI for entities, it shouldn't find a "&sect;" since the
> trailing semi-colon is missing. (Aargh, feeling like a smart-ass again ;-)

The trailing semi-colon is optional when the entity is followed by a
non-word character like "=".  With Unicode we get many more names in
the entity name space so the risk of getting bitten by this increases.

> To be honest, I have always used plain ampersands in URLs embedded in my
> pages, and thus far I have never encountered any problems.
> But maybe I've just been lucky... ;-)

Good for you :-)

Regards,
Gisle