RE: Query strings in links

hi,

within the parameter section (after the question mark) HTML recommends
encoding the characters by using HEX shorthand.

for example space is be represented as %20
ampersand as %26

your example should look like:

HREF="http://www.hp.com/cgi-bin/bob?a%3db%26c%3dd">Bob</A>

(note the equals character has also been encoded

this has always served me well and is HTML4.0 compliant (the requirement is
actually imposed by HTTP not HTML)

cheers

fern

--------------------------------------------
this opinion does not           . . _   _o       
represent that of my          . . __  _< \_      
employer.  it's mine!!        .. __  (_)>(_)     
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: kent@darwin.eeb.uconn.edu [mailto:kent@darwin.eeb.uconn.edu]
> Sent: 11 June 1999 13:11
> To: html-tidy@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Query strings in links
> 
> 
> >>>>> "Matej" == Matej Cepl <Cepl@fpm.cz> writes:
> 
>     Matej> The problem is not in TIDY but in your HTML -- every sign &
>     Matej> has to be escaped as an HTML entity &amp; . Therefore your
>     Matej> A tag should be rather as follows:
> 
>     Matej>  <A Matej> 
> HREF="http://www.hp.com/cgi-bin/bob?a=b&amp;c=d">Bob</A>
> 
> But if the server is using & as its separator in CGI scripts, the link
> will be broken. See
> 
    http://www.cs.duke.edu/~dsb/kgv-faq/errors.html#bad-entity

for more information. The bottom line, if I understand correctly, is
that as long as you refer to web sites that use only & as separators
in CGI scripts, you can't have HTML 4.0 compliant pages :(.

Kent

-- 
Kent E. Holsinger                Kent@Darwin.EEB.UConn.Edu
                                 http://darwin.eeb.uconn.edu
-- Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology          
-- University of Connecticut, U-43                                       
-- Storrs, CT   06269-3043

Received on Friday, 11 June 1999 08:45:55 UTC