CGI URL translation

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

This is probably more of an http question than a Perl question even though my scripts are Perl. It just seems like someone here always has the answer anyway.... ;) When passing data into a script with the GET method, ie, adding arguments in the URL, there are certain characters that can't be used, such as +, & and %... I believe these should be written in the path translated to a string like '%22' or similar. It's just that I can't for the life of me find a list of what characters must be translated and what they are translated TO. Since this is mucking up my script pretty badly, I could really use a link here...

Comment on CGI URL translation

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Re: CGI URL translation by jeffa (Bishop) on Sep 07, 2003 at 14:59 UTC
You want URI::Escape: `use URI::Escape; print uri_escape($_),$/ for qw(+ % &);` [download] jeffa L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L-- -R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B-- H---H---H---H---H---H--- (the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)	[reply] [d/l]
•Re: Re: CGI URL translation by merlyn (Sage) on Sep 07, 2003 at 15:06 UTC
And be aware that if that resulting string is then used anywhere in HTML (like for a "href" attribute of an "a" element), it then also has to be processed through HTML::Entities too. -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply. update: I discussed this before in Show a clickable link list of images from a CGI script.	[reply]
Re: CGI URL translation by Roger (Parson) on Sep 08, 2003 at 01:33 UTC
You could use the URI module to construct your GET method by doing: `use URI; $uri = URI->new("http://mysite/cgi/query.pl")->canonical; $uri->query_form(var1 => 'VAR1', var2 => 'VAR2'); $content = get($url);` [download] Where var1/var2 are the CGI variables. The beauty of this method is that the variables are automatically escaped.	[reply] [d/l]