[tbnl-devel] (post-parameters) strange behaviour ?

Wed Sep 1 18:50:24 UTC 2004

On Wed, 01 Sep 2004 18:26:47 +0200, Massimiliano Campagnoli <maxi at paoloastori.com> wrote:

> Try to handle this html form:
>
> <html>
> <body>
> <form name="my-form" action="/tbnl/form" method="post">
>   <input type=text name=":myfield" value="foo">
> </form>
> </body>
> </html>
>
> after submitting this form in TBNL *debug-mode* you will get:
>
>  > (post-parameters)
>  > (("%3Amyfield" . "foo"))
>
> instead of
>
>  >(("myfield" . "foo" ))

That would be strange. I hope you expected

    ((":myfield" . "foo" ))

> Any explanation for this ?

Yes, that's how the browser sends the field's name. When accepting
POST or GET parameters the values are URL-decoded (see request.lisp
and the function FORM-URL-ENCODED-LIST-TO-ALIST in util.lisp), the
names aren't. Do you think it would make sense to decode the names as
well? It'd be a trivial code change but I'm not sure about the
implications. What do the RFCs say? Are there any restrictions on the
names of the parameters?

Cheers,
Edi.