What chars allowed in a URL?

Leozack

Ok, I've just about hit the end of my patience. I can't really keep developing if my PC is insisting on laughing at me. The following link crashes my, and ONLY my, PC. Well, that IE window anyway.

http://jazzpc:8000/test/urlencode2.php? title=This+is+such+a+great+game%2C+I+can%27t+help+
but+love+it%21&author=Load+of+%5B%22%5C%2F%5C%5C+a-z0-9%21%23%A3%24%25%26%27%28%29%2A%2B%2C.%3A%3B%3D%3F%40_%7B%7D%7E-%5D&formats=Gamecube_PC

Now - as you can see that linkw as URLencoded. I need to know, what characters are ALLOWED in a URL, unencoded, and which are allowed in it encoded, and what they will be seen as by PHP on the next page, before and after they're decoded. My trial pages serve me no good, as they crash. Though it does seem that after linking, PHP sees the variables as they were, before they were encoded, but with addslashes() on for some reason!?! After a stripslashes(), they seem to be ok.

Please help! O_o

bad76

Hi,
get a look to this thread

http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10239170

Usually the bad chars are ascii 0 (NULL), 10 & 13(return) and the char " & ' (quote) , \ (used to escape) and all where ascii>128.
May be all.

see you.

EDIT
I forgive the ascii 8, the tab...

Leozack

Looking at my link, it seems urlencode converts things to hex, ie you have things like %3B%3c%2A etc. Now ... I guess this doesn't help me then, because what I need to know REALLY, is, seeing as I can't test it (mine wants to crash with characters that are apparently allowed) - what characters will crash a link or ruin a variable? Or rather - what characters in a variable will require me to encode them? And if I encode them, what will PHP make of them on the next page before/after decoding? And why do I end up having to stripslashes()? My development is held up at this point =(

I hope this explains more and someone can solve this once and for all. My alternative is to pass all variables into a temp session-stored array before linking, and reading them back on the next page. But this is a LOT more work that just urlencode()'ing the lin =/

bad76

If the problem
is only your pc, don't change the code.
Clean the pc or format it or reinstall m$ ie.

see you

ps: do you have tried rawurlencode() that talking about in the thread that i link?

Leozack

I want to format, yes, but the time it takes to reinstall programs and setting after a fresh install is so much that I don't want to do it until I upgrade my cpu/mobo anywy and have to format for that. Which I am now gonna ahve to do, but A - I'm short of cash and B - it's a bad time to upgrade, and there is no clear winner or value/price/performance of ahtlong/intel atm.
But yes I treid rawurlencode, and that just made the spaces %20 not + and that's about it really, and the hyperlink showed spaces not %20 but I guess that's just the browser doing that. I'd reinstall IE, but it's rather crucial to windows, so you can't just uninstall and install fresh like any other software 😉 hmmmm, I wonder abuot netscape ... (though my site doens't look right in netscape, grrr)
So you're saying any character is ko to use in a url as long as it's ur encoded? What about on the next page? will any characters be ok? do I have to stripslashes() them which seems to be the case? I wish I could find simple guides to such obvious things that I wish I thought of before I started coding =(

bad76

:eek:

And with rawurlencode() don't crash ?!?

Leozack

Yeah it still crashes. This is the link with rawurlencode

urlencode2.php?title=This%20is%20such%20a%20great%20game%2C%20I%20can%27t%20help%20but%20love%20it%21&author=Load%20of%20%5B%22%5C%2F%5C%5C%20a-z0-9%21%23%A3%24%25%26%27%28%29%2A%2B%2C.%3A%3B%3D%3F%40_%7B%7D%7E-%5D&formats=Gamecube_PC

Just when I need to upgrade and have other financial problems the game I enjoy Ragnarok Online is going pay-for at $58 per 6 months, arrrrgh, can't afford it, must afford it