resource identifiers

[Clive Page]

On Fri, 23 May 2003, Roy Williams wrote:

> If VO identifiers have = and &, it is not just an OAI problem, it means that
> the identifier cannot be used in any web service that has CGI GET
> implementation -- at least not without character translation.

Roy

Maybe my earlier message got lost so this one's copied to you as well (a
practice which I usually deplore since it means that you are likely to get
two copies, but I see that practically everyone else does it, so why not).

The presence of characters such as = and & is absolutely no problem at
all.  It was all solved back in 1994, and the solution is called
URL-encoding.  It's so basic that it's built into all web browsers, CGI
servers, etc.  So basic and automatic that perhaps you've never come
across it (though I'm surprised all the same).

I'm grateful to Chris Perry for finding this handy URL which gives the
relevant RFC (oops I almost said RTFM) and it came from Tim Berners-Lee
himself (what better authority?):

http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1738.txt

The references to Gopher and other antediluvian protocols make it look a
bit dated, but still worth a read.

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