| |
In lugnet.faq, Todd Lehman writes:
> [...]
> If something is written as:
>
> <http://www.w3.org/Addressing/URL/5_BNF.html|Uniform Resource Locators:BNF>
>
> then, even though | (vline) isn't part of a valid URL, Netscape mail (and
> likely MSOE as well) displays everything up through the end of the word
> "Uniform" as a hyperlink. It's certainly an unfortunate bug in Netscape's
> mail reader, but for practical reasons on those grounds, it's really worth
> considering something other than | as the separator (for this LUGNET purpose).
> [...]
Gulp, I made the same mistake in my URL detection code on the web interface
here. Just tightened up the set of allowable characters a bit and regression
tested...much better now.
BTW, I'm consciously going against what W3 says about the ~ symbol. According
to the 'national' production here...
http://www.w3.org/Addressing/URL/5_BNF.html
...the tilde character (ASCII code 126) isn't valid in URLs. I've seen people
write %7E instead of ~, which is apparently the only correct way to write it,
but almost no one is aware of that (as judged by the huge number of ~'s seen
in URLs *everywhere* on the net). So practically speaking, it would be more
broken (in users' minds) to disallow ~ than to allow it.
So what's up with that, anyway? How the heck did ~ gain such huge popularity
if it's not officially allowed in URLs? Was it allowed once upon a time? Or
is it simply part of today's de facto URL standard because of its extremely
wide misuse? (It's too bad that it's not officially allowed, because it's a
great character for what it's typically used for.)
--Todd
[followups set to lugnet.publish]
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: URL characters
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| (...) Unix makes the ~ character a users home directory ... so UnixSystem/~lee ... would be my home directory ... Now because of this, and since the Internet (Arpanet) were all college schools when it 'went public', the system of choice at colleges (...) (25 years ago, 18-Jul-99, to lugnet.publish)
| | | Re: URL characters
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| Todd Lehman: (...) The primary reason for disallowing ~ is the special treatment it gets in several European languages. If people type <slash> <tilde> <s> <p> (expecting "/~sp") some systems will just return "sp". Similarly if people type <slash> (...) (25 years ago, 26-Jul-99, to lugnet.publish)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: [faq FAQ How do I format an entry in the Lugnet FAQ?]
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| (...) Hee hee! COOL! Say, I wonder if math-geeks have a strong natural affinity toward custom tools like that? Why design a special tool and a custom markup when HTML already exists? Answer: Because it's easy, more pleasant to work with for lots of (...) (25 years ago, 18-Jul-99, to lugnet.faq)
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