Re: Compatibility between HTML, XForms, and WSDL

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005, Eric Prud'hommeaux wrote:
>
> HTML4.01 (and probably XHTML, though I didn't find it) specifies that
> a GET URI is constructed as such:
>   action + '?' + url-encoded form parameters
> 
> An cursory implementation survey showed that Lynx 2.8.4, Opera 7.5.4,
> Mozilla 1.7.5 all appear to chop off the '?' and everything after it.
>   <http://q.example/what?inference=owl-lite&q=SELECT%20%3>
> 
> WSDL [WZ] follows XForms's [XF] example and specifies that the
> separator between the action and the parameters be a '?' if there is
> not one already, otherwise, a '&' .
>   <http://q.example/what?foo&inference=owl-lite&q=SELECT%20%3>
> 
> I propose an errata to HTML to reflect either current practice or the
> XForms way of doing it. I will propose that the SPARQL protocol [SP]
> use the XForms approach as well.

One advantage of the current practice is that if the action is "" then you 
don't end up adding more and more arguments:

   <form action="">
    <p><input type="submit" name="test" value="test"></p>
   </form>

The first click would return

   http://www.example.com/q?test=test

With the current practice of HTML UAs, a second click returns the same 
thing. With the other proposal, you would get:

   http://www.example.com/q?test=test&test=test

...then:

   http://www.example.com/q?test=test&test=test&test=test

...and so forth.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Monday, 21 March 2005 02:10:15 UTC