Re: Validation difficulties

Gerald Oskoboiny (gerald@w3.org)
Sat, 21 Feb 1998 18:32:22 -0500 (EST) 

Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 18:32:22 -0500 (EST)
From: Gerald Oskoboiny <gerald@w3.org>
To: www-html@w3.org
In-Reply-To: <199802212235.RAA29866@unix.asb.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.96.980221182452.14419A-100000@anansi.w3.org>
Subject: Re: Validation difficulties

On Sat, 21 Feb 1998, Rob wrote:

> I've got a dilemma with the following
> 
>   <A HREF="page.cgi?arg1=val1&arg2=val2">link</A>
> 
> NSGMLS sys (rightly I assume) that &arg2 is not a valid entity and 
> returns an error.

Yes, this has been a known problem for some time. I've been
meaning to write it up in detail sometime, but haven't yet.
In the meantime, see:

    http://www.cs.duke.edu/~dsb/kgv-faq/errors.html#bad-entity
and
    http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_foot.html#FOOT26

> So how can one get around this problem? Or should I just ignore it.

You can replace the '&'s in the href with '&amp;', or try using
';' as separators instead of '&' (a well-written CGI script will
allow you to use ';' instead of '&' between parameters; if this
CGI script doesn't, send e-mail to the authors, or if you are
the author, change it yourself.)

> Something be changed in the DTD to allow any character in a URL.

That isn't possible with SGML.

Hope this helps,

Gerald
-- 
Gerald Oskoboiny              <gerald@w3.org>  +1 617 253 2920
System Administrator, W3C     http://www.w3.org/People/Gerald/
World Wide Web Consortium, MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
545 Technology Square,  Room NE43-353  Cambridge MA  02139 USA