We're not talking about documents here, we're talking about URLs, which don't conform to HTML or XML specifications. URLs embedded inside an HTML/XML document must conform to the spec, and therefore have entity-escaped ampersands, but URLs themselves have literla (unescaped) ampersands.
For what it's worth, I've seen similar behaviour from certain search engines, where links have ampersands in them. It's trivial to put a filter at the front of your request to strip names that contain "amp;" at the beginning. Hardly an ideal solution, but it's more reasonable than changing the third-party search engine (unless you've got better friends than I do). cheers, barneyb On 4/17/07, Dave Watts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > URLs should contain unescaped ampersands. This URL: > > > > .../index.cfm?id=3&cat=dusty > > > > defines two params, one named 'id, and one named 'amp;cat', > > with values you can surmise. > > Actually, I think that's incorrect: > > http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#C_12 > > "n both SGML and XML, the ampersand character ("&") declares the beginning > of an entity reference (e.g., ® for the registered trademark symbol > "(r)"). Unfortunately, many HTML user agents have silently ignored incorrect > usage of the ampersand character in HTML documents - treating ampersands > that do not look like entity references as literal ampersands. XML-based > user agents will not tolerate this incorrect usage, and any document that > uses an ampersand incorrectly will not be "valid", and consequently will not > conform to this specification. In order to ensure that documents are > compatible with historical HTML user agents and XML-based user agents, > ampersands used in a document that are to be treated as literal characters > must be expressed themselves as an entity reference (e.g. "&"). For > example, when the href attribute of the a element refers to a CGI script > that takes parameters, it must be expressed as > http://my.site.dom/cgi-bin/myscript.pl?class=guest&name=user rather than > as http://my.site.dom/cgi-bin/myscript.pl?class=guest&name=user."; > > Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software > http://www.figleaf.com/ > > Fig Leaf Software provides the highest caliber vendor-authorized > instruction at our training centers in Washington DC, Atlanta, > Chicago, Baltimore, Northern Virginia, or on-site at your location. > Visit http://training.figleaf.com/ for more information! > > This email has been processed by SmoothZap - www.smoothwall.net > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Upgrade to Adobe ColdFusion MX7 Experience Flex 2 & MX7 integration & create powerful cross-platform RIAs http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/flex2/?sdid=RVJQ Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:275579 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
