Pasted URLs process + characters improperly when they are used (properly) as spaces

Bug
1

Continuing the discussion from Pasted URLs in Rich Text Editor improperly escape tilde character:

Reproducing:

I entered the following URL above by pasting it in the editor:
https://frinklang.org/fsp/solve2.fsp?equations=a+%3D+3+b+%2B+c&solveFor=&f=&ev=on&sel_a=S&val_a=&sel_b=S&val_b=&sel_c=L&val_c=299792458+m+s%5E-1&resultAs=
Proper response to clicking on the link would be:

image
image681×698 16.9 KB

But the Discourse-Rendered version of that URL is:
https://frinklang.org/fsp/solve2.fsp?equations=a%2B%3D%2B3%2Bb%2B%2B%2Bc&solveFor=&f=&ev=on&sel_a=S&val_a=&sel_b=S&val_b=&sel_c=L&val_c=299792458%2Bm%2Bs%5E-1&resultAs=

Note the %2B replacing the + character. This fails, and produces the following result:

image
image518×387 9.24 KB

Testing hyperlink tool:

Discourse-Made-Hyperlink

Discourse Link Tool-Rendered URL:
https://frinklang.org/fsp/solve2.fsp?equations=a%2B%3D%2B3%2Bb%2B%2B%2Bc&solveFor=&f=&ev=on&sel_a=S&val_a=&sel_b=S&val_b=&sel_c=L&val_c=299792458%2Bm%2Bs%5E-1&resultAs=

This also fails, looking like this:

image
image515×433 10.4 KB

I’m not 100% sure what’s going wrong, but I think it’s the + characters, which should be spaces, being mis-processed into a literal +.

Using a + for a space in a URL is standards-compliant for HTML form encoding, so this is possibly affecting other sites/systems that use the + character this way.

See: WHATWG. HTML Living Standard. Section “URL-encoded form data”. HTML Standard

1 Like
2

Other issues which I thought were related, but I now think not:

3

Yeah this is a messy one, I think only the oneboxer and frontend bug:

https://frinklang.org/fsp/solve2.fsp?equations=a+%2B+b&solveFor=&f=&ev=on

vs:

<https://frinklang.org/fsp/solve2.fsp?equations=a+%2B+b&solveFor=&f=&ev=on>

vs:

https://frinklang.org/fsp/solve2.fsp?equations=a+%2B+b&solveFor=&f=&ev=on

I have a fix here, but as you can see from Related topics, this is VERY COMPLICATED :tm: , over the years there have been so many bugs in this area.

1 Like
4

Thanks for the attention!

You can trust Alan, the creator of the Frink language, to expose any error while being 100% standards-compliant. It’s what he does.

(Incidentally, if you ever need extreme unit correctness for any scientific or engineering application, do check out Frink.)

1 Like