RE: Parameters in <img src> interpreted as entities

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Greetings,

On 12-May-97 Nick Holloway wrote:
>This is present in Amaya 1.0a, but has been present in earlier releases.
>
>If Amaya reads in the following HTML:
>
>    <a href="/cgi-bin/program?x=1&y=1">Link</a>
>    <img src="/cgi-bin/program?x=1&y=1">
>
>It doesn't complain about the link, but it does complain that "&y="
>is an invalid entity in the <img>.
>

AFAIK, Amaya is right in doing so. RFC 1866 says:

            NOTE - The URI from a query form submission can be
            used in a normal anchor style hyperlink.
            Unfortunately, the use of the `&' character to
            separate form fields interacts with its use in SGML
            attribute values as an entity reference delimiter.
            For example, the URI `http://host/?x=1&y=2' must be
            written `<a href="http://host/?x=1&#38;y=2"' or `<a
            href="http://host/?x=1&amp;y=2">'.

            HTTP server implementors, and in particular, CGI
            implementors are encouraged to support the use of
            `;' in place of `&' to save users the trouble of
            escaping `&' characters this way.

I came across the same issue when I was working on my HTML validator
(http://www.snowman.sci.fi/lehtori/ - it's not ROT13'd, it's in Finnish ;-) and
received angry messages from people who were getting errors when referring to
CGI scripts.

>Another interesting feature is that "&ft;" is turned into a ">" symbol,
>but I don't recognise that as a valid entity.
>

That looks like an error to me.

BTW - did my bug reports concerning the Save As dialog and Amaya losing the
NOWRAP attribute ever make it to the list? I do not think I ever saw any
replies.

Enjoy,

Sami

- ---------------------------------------------------------
               Sami Lempinen * ssl@sci.fi
   http://www.sci.fi/~ssl/ * http://www.snowman.sci.fi/
- ---------------------------------------------------------
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Received on Tuesday, 13 May 1997 08:31:37 UTC