Re: ERB call on addressing

At 9:50 PM -0500 3/25/97, lee@sq.com wrote:
>It's true that they don't pass the parameters to the CGI script in
>a separate variable, if that's what you mean, but they don't swallow
>them either.

That's what I meant by no "special support". No help. The server does not
parse it, and depending on which versions of the RFCs you read, parameters
are legal in different places -- so you are really no better off than
hacking URL paths or any other form of URL mangling. The point I was making
is that parameters qualify as reserved syntax, but they don't really have a
standard implementation or working practice that lets one recycle code or
user experience -- they've been used (differently) by a very few products
of the many out there.

I'm not arguing that they get trashed, just that the common practice that
tells me where to look for parameters (and commonly available code to do it
for me) is lacking almost everywhere. Most CGI packages that I've seen
don't even have code to parse parameters (never mind that they are not put
in a single consistent place by the server). You have to either re-parse
the URL yourself, or check the path and the wuery serpately so see if
anything that looks like a parameter is there. And with the new draft, you
even have to look at multiple places in the path part!

It doesn't sound _practically_ interoperable, even though the information
is not lost.

>Lee


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David Durand              dgd@cs.bu.edu  \  david@dynamicDiagrams.com
Boston University Computer Science        \  Sr. Analyst
http://www.cs.bu.edu/students/grads/dgd/   \  Dynamic Diagrams
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Received on Wednesday, 26 March 1997 10:52:46 UTC