Query string: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:23, 2 December 2005

Revision as of 15:54, 2 December 2005

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==URL Encoding==

The field names and values in the query string are encoded according to a schema known as [[URL Encoding]]. This is necessary because someSome characters cannot be part of a URL (for example, the space) and some other characters have a special meaning in a URL: for example, the character <code>#</code> is used to locate a point within a page; the character <code>=</code> is used to separate thea name from thea value. A query string may need to be converted to satisfy these constraints. This can be done using a schema known as [[URL Encoding]].

In particular, [[Request for Comments|RFC 1738]] specifies that &ldquo;only alphanumerics, the special characters "$-_.+!*'(),", and reserved characters used for their reserved purposes may be used unencoded within a URL&rdquo;. All characters in a query string can be replaced by their hexadecimal value precedeed by the symbol <code>%</code>. For example, the equal sign can be replaced by <code>%3D</code>. All characters can be replaced this way; for the characters that are forbidden in a query string, this is not only possible but necessary.