resource identifiers

[Clive Page]

On Thu, 22 May 2003, Roy Williams wrote:

> But it doesn't parse right because there is an equals sign "=" in the
> identifier itself. There is a token that looks like key=value=value.
>
> Please can we have an identifier syntax which has neither "&" nor "=" in it?
>
> Suggestion:
> Can we use colons instead?
> ivo://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/nvo/registry:ADIL/SIA/targeted
> ivo://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/nvo/registry:ADIL:95.DR.01.01.fits
> ivo://mercury.cacr.caltech.edu/OAIprototype:dc-adil

There's surely a Standard way to do this, indeed I think it's required:
URL-encoding.

For example an "=" sign in the parameter contents must be replaced by
"%3d" and so on.  Similarly translations for "&" are required, and spaces
get turned into "+" signs rather bizarrely.  Since such translations are
pretty much done for you in lower layers of browsers and CGI servers, the
user rarely notices them.

-- 
Clive Page,
Dept of Physics & Astronomy,
University of Leicester,    Tel +44 116 252 3551
Leicester, LE1 7RH,  U.K.   Fax +44 116 252 3311