how to post a link with parens?

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

I was trying to post this link as a reply to a question on joins and got the message about containing an illegal character. The suggestion was to escape your < characters. Of which I don't have any.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Join_ (SQL)

(I inserted a space in the link so it would post here. And yes, the link has parenthesis.)

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Sadly, you can't. This is most often noticed when trying to post a link to a specific method in the Javadoc APIs, which have parens in the anchors.

Hmmmm. Now that you have asked, though, now we might have to try to do something about it...

[Jim Yingst]

This should work now.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Join_(SQL)

Very nice! Thanks for the improvmement!

[Carol Enderlin]

Mine didn't seem to work...

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/sql/Blob.html#setBinaryStream(long)

I can enter it, but when I try the link it takes me to Blob.html and not to the method. I'm using IE7. I'll try it later on Safari.
[ February 02, 2007: Message edited by: Carol Enderlin ]

[Jim Yingst]

Hmmm. Well, it works in Firefox and Safari. Those are the two I care about. The rest of you are on your own. No, seriously, it seems that IE doesn't like it when we substitute %28 for '(' and %29 for ')'. The idea here is to block links which attempt to use JavaScript for inappropriate hacks, while allowing innocuous actions like linking to the Java API. Since I don't know JavaScript all that well, I take a very cautious approach about what we should allow. Apparently that's good enough for Geal Browsers™ but not for IE. Well, we'll look into the possibility of further refinements. Meanwhile, everyone else should just switch to Firefox or Safari.

[Mapraputa Is]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Join_(SQL) works for me with IE 6.0, while
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/sql/Blob.html#setBinaryStream(long)

does not.

In other words, the problem exists only for URLs that contain anchors (#).
[ February 02, 2007: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]

[Carol Enderlin]

I was a bit terse in my post, I had the same results with IE7 as Map with IE6, where Jeanne's link worked.

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:

In other words, the problem exists only for URLs that contain anchors (#).

[Jim Yingst]

Thanks for the info, Carol and Map. Unfortunately I'm not seeing a good solution here that will accommodate IE and still block javascript attaacks. The existing UBB code takes a fairly paranoid attitude about what might be a javascript attack, and not being a javascript expert myself, I'm reluctant to loosen the security too much in that area. I'm open to suggestions, but I'm also reluctant to publicly discuss all the details of how the security works. I suspect that IE users will just have to be content with getting links to the top of the document. At least they can post the link without getting an error now.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
At least they can post the link without getting an error now.

It's a better state of affairs than when we started!

[Jim Yingst]

And this way we're giving people incentive to upgrade to a real browser.

[Carol Enderlin]

Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
And this way we're giving people incentive to upgrade to a real browser.

Good one, Jim.

[Deepak Bala]

Works for me. Thanks