Re: [Lynx-dev] Problem with form action parameters with underscores

[David Woolley]

> action=error.php?par1=1&par_2=2

This HTML is invalid.  It should be:

action="error.php?par1=1&par_2=2"

If Lynx thinks that there really is an ∥ entity, it will substitute 
that.  I don't know if it uses the same error recovery as other browsers 
and simply leave the entity references unresolved in other caess.  If 
lynx does recognise an ∥ entity, you will have to fix this is the 
HTML, otherwise, you still should.

Note that both errors would result in true XHTML being rejected 
completely by any conformant browser (i.e. XHTML served with an XML 
media type).

The HTML 4.01 specification specifically discusses the common error of 
failing to use & in this sort of context and reccommends that web 
servers accept ; as an alternative.  You may well find that PHP does that.

Incidentally, the behaviour of action URLs containing ?'s is not well 
defined by the specifications.  Is there any reason why you didn't use 
hidden parameters?  (It looks as though either Lynx is merging the 
parameters, or PHP accepts ? for &, in this case.)

http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/appendix/notes.html#h-B.2.2
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/intro/sgmltut.html#h-3.2.2