Maximum URL length?

[sneakyimp]

Ok...

i read somewhere (i believe it was the M$ site) that IE can handle a URL of up to 2048 characters. The article said there is no maximum url specified.

Someone else (with whom i am debating) told me the protocol specifies a maximum length of 1024 chars.

Can anyone clear this up definitively?

[sneakyimp]

i think i may have found my answer. IETF.org says:

The HTTP protocol does not place any a priori limit on the length of
a URI. Servers MUST be able to handle the URI of any resource they
serve, and SHOULD be able to handle URIs of unbounded length if they
provide GET-based forms that could generate such URIs. A server
SHOULD return 414 (Request-URI Too Long) status if a URI is longer
than the server can handle (see section 10.4.15).

  Note: Servers ought to be cautious about depending on URI lengths
  above 255 bytes, because some older client or proxy
  implementations might not properly support these lengths.

Anybody know how much Apache can handle?