[ale] Data encoding in a web page

[Christopher Fowler]

I've determined that HTTPClinents is doing the encoding.  Below you can see 
the value has been encoded.  What is trange is that there is not more
crap after the encoding like I see with Netscape and Konq.  The capture 
below is what I've caught the Java program sending.

POST /myverification/Search.aspx HTTP/1.1
Host: 127.0.0.1
Connection: Keep-Alive, TE
TE: trailers, deflate, gzip, compress
User-Agent: RPT-HTTPClient/0.3-3E
Accept-Encoding: deflate, gzip, x-gzip, compress, x-compress
Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Content-length: 900

__EVENTTARGET=&__EVENTARGUMENT=&__VIEWSTATE=dDwyMTQxMjc4NDIxO3Q8O2w8aTwxPjs%2BO2w8dDw7bDxpPDA%2BOz47bDx0PDtsPGk8MT47PjtsPHQ8O2w8aTwxPjs%2BO2w8dDw7bDxpPDE%2BOz47bDx0PDtsPGk8Mj47aTwzPjtpPDk%2BO2k8MTI%2BOz47bDx0PDtsPGk8MT47PjtsPHQ8O2w8aTwwPjs%2BO2w8dDx0PDs7bDxpPDA%2BOz4%2BOzs%2BOz4%2BOz4%2BO3Q8O2w8aTwxPjs%2BO2w8dDw7bDxpPDA%2BOz47bDx0PHQ8OztsPGk8MD47Pj47Oz47Pj47Pj47dDw7bDxpPDE%2BOz47bDx0PDtsPGk8MD47PjtsPHQ8dDw7O2w8aTwwPjs%2BPjs7Pjs%2BPjs%2BPjt0PDtsPGk8MT47PjtsPHQ8O2w8aTwwPjs%2BO2w8dDx0PDs7bDxpPDA%2BOz4%2BOzs%2BOz4%2BOz4%2BOz4%2BOz4%2BOz4%2BOz4%2BOz4%2BOz4%2BOz5ZeStnfajPMQ9tQDyvFfTUkgUDJg%3D%3D&t_web_lookup__profession_name=&t_web_lookup__license_type_name=&t_web_lookup__first_name=&t_web_lookup__last_name=&t_web_lookup__license_no=RN78&t_web_lookup__license_status_name=&t_web_lookup__addr_county=&t_web_lookup__addr_city=&t_web_lookup__addr_state=&t_web_lookup__addr_zipcode=&sch_button=Search



On Sun, Oct 19, 2003 at 08:06:45AM -0400, J.M. Taylor wrote:
> Chris,
> 
> As to how Netscape knows to do it, it's built into the http protocol, see
> w3.org.  Post vars get sent exactly like Get/Put vars (ie, URL encoded,
> ie, with special chars converted to their ascii equivs).
> 
> Browsers must send data this way.  As to what's the difference, my only
> real guess would be that certain special chars are reserved by the browser
> (ie: ? = and & ) and so it's better to urlencode so that the browser
> doesn't get erroneous data.  Also, when they send data from a textarea
> they have to encode the newlines or the data wouldn't all come in on that
> absurdly long string.
> 
> Thankfully, this is one area that MS has decided to play by the rules.
> 
> Speaking of the absurdly long string and textareas, does anybody know how
> much data can be passed via POST (not individual fields, but the whole
> entire form as a single entity)?  I looked everywhere, w3 doesn't have it
> as part of the http specification but surely there's an upper limit to how
> much data can be passed...
> 
> Ciao
> jenn
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale