Re: trimming non-numerics

[Hans Boldt <boldt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Buck Calabro wrote:
> > Bob: That link doesn't seem to work. Either it's
> > because mcpressonline uses malformed URL's
> > that get mangled by the mailing list software,
>
>
> For the archives: mcpressonline uses URLs with an '@' in them.  Those
> of us who use the newsgroup interface via news.gmane.org see something
> like
> http://www.mcpressonline.com/mc?1-xd/LTlFfQWwfXf0S4tr+kA@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> org@.6ae9a226
>
> That's because gmane mangles email addresses to protect the poster's
> identity from spammers.  It thinks links like this are email
> addresses, so they get mangled.
>
> The archives have the same 'problem' if you will, but the link itself
> is good, so you can click on it and be taken to the article.  Start at
> the archive site and click on the most recent month.  The post is
> already there (nice work, David!)
>   --buck

If mcpressonline puts '@' in its query strings, then it is in fact a 
malformed URL, and the webmaster should be notified. Query strings can 
only have the characters [a-zA-Z0-9_.-]. Other characters must be hex 
encoded. For example, @ must be replaced by %40, ? by %3F, = by %3D, 
space by %20, etc.

As you can see, once these malformed URL's are referred to in replies, 
the mangling gets even worse!

So if you want to post the URL of an article on mcpressonline, you have 
to manually url-encode the query string part of it. (I know from my own 
experience that it's a pain to have to manually correct such invalid 
URL's. That's one reason I just don't bother with mcpressonline any more.)

Cheers! Hans