URI template variable names vs URI unreserved characters

• From: Rushforth, Peter <Peter.Rushforth@NRCan-RNCan.gc.ca>
• Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 19:57:26 +0000
• To: "uri@w3.org" <uri@w3.org>
• Message-ID: <1CD55F04538DEA4F85F3ADF7745464AF1AE5A92B@S-BSC-MBX1.nrn.nrcan.gc.ca>

Hi,

I am trying to use URI templates to describe an existing API. The api has parameters which
include hyphens "-".  URI template variable names disallow hyphens, forcing them to be
% encoded.

Why should hyphens be excluded?  They don't seem to have special meaning in templates
and they are unreserved in URIs.
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986#section-2.3
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6570#section-2.3

It might work out that the resulting URIs are useable, but they are damn ugly,
and it was readability that prompted the hyphens in the first place.

Thanks,
Peter Rushforth

Received on Wednesday, 26 September 2012 19:57:54 UTC