Oh Wise Ones ...

I've searched here and elsewhere to no avail .... I'm wondering if there is way to include the "#" (pound) character in a QUERY_STRING in a way that it will be passed to the script.

In other words, I have a link that is structured:

<a href="script.pl?first#second">CLICK</a>
[download]

And script.pl prints the QUERY_STRING using:

print "=> $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'}";
[download]

The script prints up to the "#" character and then stops:

"first"

I've managed to get things working by altering the "#" character in the link and then substituting once the script reads in the QUERY_STRING, but the nagging issue of whether there is a way to pass the "#" character in a QUERY_STRING remains, and I'm hoping for some insight (and also hoping that there isn't an obvious solution that I've embarrassingly overlooked).