[WEB4LIB] Netscape 6 and FirstSearch

[Thomas Dowling]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Darryl Friesen" <Darryl.Friesen at usask.ca>
To: <tdowling at ohiolink.ohiolink.edu>; "Multiple recipients of list"
<web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2000 10:27 AM
Subject: Re: [WEB4LIB] Netscape 6 and FirstSearch


> > Is anyone getting into FirstSearch with Netscape 6 or Mozilla?  OCLC
seems
> > to have a browser sniffer that screws up, overlooks your valid IP, and
> > sends you to a password login screen.  Thanks for illustrating why
relying
> > on browser sniffing is bad.
>
> I don't think it's browser sniffing that's causing the problem.  There's
> been quite a bit of discussion on the SiteSearch mailing list
(SiteSearch
> and FirstSearch seem quite similar, so I'm betting it's related) about
the
> way SiteSearch forms URLs (something about Netscape encoding  the ":"
used
> in the SiteSearch/FirstSearch URLs and SS/FS not decoding them).  I'm
not
> clear on whether it's a Netscape bug, or a problem with SS/FS.
>
> Just a guess, but a reasonable one I think.
>

Well, I took a moment to check this.  Then I took a moment to recite some
good old Anglo-Saxon expressions.

What you're saying is that the FirstSearch login script cannot handle a
correctly hex-encoded colon character.  This is clearly a failure by
FirstSearch to support the URL specification in rfc1738.  Section 2.2:

   ...characters that are not required to be encoded
   (including alphanumerics) may be encoded within the scheme-specific
   part of a URL, as long as they are not being used for a reserved
   purpose.

Section 3.3:

   ...Within the <path> and <searchpart> components, "/", ";", "?" are
   reserved.  The "/" character may be used within HTTP to designate a
   hierarchical structure.

Since the colon is not reserved, I see no excuse for failing  to recognize
"%3A" as its encoded version.

I suppose the good folks in Dublin have a "We don't test on beta browsers"
policy.  Too bad--they had a six month window to test, discover, and fix t
his problem.

Thomas Dowling
OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu