[WEB4LIB] Ampersands in database URLs problem

[Eric Hellman]

Ampersands must be represented as html entities (ie. as "&") when 
they are in validated html documents or well-formed xml documents. 
That DOESN'T mean the URL has "&" in it, however, only that you 
can't have a bare "&" in html or xml and expect to it to validate!

For example, if you copy a URL from an HTML document and paste it 
into your browser address bar, the result will not work if the URL 
has an "&" in it.

Hope this helps

Eric



At 1:24 PM -0700 6/8/04, Elizabeth A Reiten wrote:
>Hi everyone!
>
>I have what I suspect is a not-unusual problem, and was hoping someone had
>some insight on the matter...
>
>In my current site conversion, I'm attempting to validate all of my HTML
>against the W3C's HTML Markup Validation Service 
>(http://validator.w3.org).  I'm doing well on most things, but where 
>I'm running into a snag is
>with a few database vendors using ampersands in their URLs.  We don't
>display our URLs; they're on the back side, but as I understand the
>standards, ALL characters (or character encoding) need to match up with
>the declared DOCTYPE, whether displayed or not.
>
>Now, everybody seems to be using ampersands in their URLs these days; I
>understand that it often is a consequence of database-driven sites.
>However, I've been able to convert the "&" in a URL to "&" with no
>access difficulties in all but a few cases; CSA, Chadwyck, SilverPlatter,
>BiblioLine, and Knovel.  When I encode the ampersands in any of these
>vendors' URLs, it actually blocks access to the database.
>
>Has anyone else run into this type of problem?  If so, how did you resolve
>it?  Or is it, as I was told by the CSA developer I talked to yesterday,
>actually not a problem?  I thought I'd drop y'all a note to see if this is
>a familiar situation to anyone.  I've also dug through the W3C's website,
>but I haven't found anything yet.  I'll be posting to the forum this
>afternoon, most likely.
>
>Thanks in advance!
>
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>Email: reitene at okstate.edu


-- 

Eric Hellman, President                            Openly Informatics, Inc.
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