I've been struggling with this very issue recently and came across a url here at perlmonks that uri_escape doesn't handle, and requires CGI::escape. This small CGI program compares uri_escape and escape by producing two links to perlmonks:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use CGI qw(:all escape escapeHTML);
use URI::Escape;

$site = 'http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node=';
$user = 'Clive ;-)'; # my test case for whitespace and funny chrs

print header,h1("compare");
print
     '<A HREF="',
     escapeHTML(uri_escape($site.$user)),
     '">',
     escapeHTML($user),
     '</A> - <tt>escapeHTML(uri_escape($site.$user))</tt><br>'; # does
+n't work

print
     '<A HREF="',
     escapeHTML($site.escape($user)),
     '">',
     escapeHTML($user),
     '</A> - <tt>escapeHTML($site.escape($user))</tt><p>'; # works
[download]

The 2nd print using CGI::escape on the param only, yields: http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node=Clive%20%3B-%29

As you can see the semicolon is causing a problem in the uri_escape url.
Is this a general condition or just a peculiarity of perlmonks?

--
Check out my Perlmonks Related Scripts like framechat, reputer, and xNN.

The escaping of form parameters has different rules and cannot be done with a simple pass. You need to escape it by constructing a URI using URI. So, your example is bogus from the get-go.

In particular, what you want is:

$site = 'http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl'; 
$user = 'Clive ;-)'; # my test case for whitespace and funny chrs 
use URI;
my $uri = URI->new($site);
$uri->query_form( node => $user );
print $uri->as_string;
[download]

which prints

http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node=Clive+%3B-)
[download]

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

Ooooo, fame at last :-))

cLive ;-)