Re: LYNX-DEV New in VFAQ

[Foteos Macrides]

Chris Maden <address@hidden> wrote:
>[Al Gilman]
>> If you hadn't attracted such an enthusiastic crowd for "let's pound
>> Philip" day, I would have clean missed Chris Maden's discourse on
>> %HH encoding and all that.
>
>But please edit my post before including it in the picks, or at least
>include the other responses.  My discussion was correct w.r.t. HTML
>and HTTP URLs, but apparently does not apply to lynxprog: URLs (which
>is why I didn't respond to the original question.

        Just so there's no confusion, escaping as Chris described
*should* be done for lynxexec and lynxprog URLs, and the URLs are
unescaped, but an exception is made for those two schemes and the
escaping is not required.  That's because too few users understand
the URL versus HTML escaping rules and their interactions, and
lynxexec and lynxprog URLs are "Lynxisms" anyway (the "launch file
trick" is the browser independent way to invoke local programs
securely and appropriately for any platform).  So for those two
schemes, the path, any spaces, and any switches can be entered in
the markup exactly as you would on the platform's command line or
in the VIEWER or mailcap entries for launches.

        But at time of invokation, the lynxexec and lynxprog URLs
will be rejected if they have relative path fields ("../" for
Unix, and minus fields in brackets for VMS), or if they have
"strange characters" on Unix.  The latter seems too restrictive
in the present code, and perhaps only ';' should be a cause for
rejection, but I've been reluctant to change that filter without
explicit discussion about it by those you use lynxexec or lynxprog
URLs seriously on Unix, which has yet to take place in lynx-dev.

        Using '+' as part of a Usenet group name indeed was a
very bad idea on someone's part, but it can be used as a switch
token (not just '-') on Unix, so blocking it is problematic.
The current blocking of '&' also seems excessive.

                                Fote

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 Foteos Macrides            Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research
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