servlet request problem

quinnd6

Ok theres a site with an address similar to the following
http://test.address.uk/serverArea?view=confirm&file=ID4793944974.ID&cd=0
my servlet performs a check in the following way

//please note request.getString is the same as request.getParameter except it
//throws a certain exception if a string does not exist
String view = request.getParameter("view");
if(view= confirm)
{
             fileId= request.getString("id");
             cd = request.getParameter("cd");   


}

The problem is sometimes the address needs to be of this form
http://test.address.uk/serverArea?view=confirm&file=ID4793944974.ID&cd=0

So when this address is entered I get an exception that the string cd doesn't exist.

This is because of there being a "%26" instead of & before the "cd" end.

Is there anyway I could solve this problem?

irlrobins

You could get the parameter for for file and then if it contains the substring "%26" break it up into file and cd parts. If it doesn't then continue on to get parameter for cd as you have given above.

marco_polo

quinnd6 wrote:

Ok theres a site with an address similar to the following
http://test.address.uk/serverArea?view=confirm&file=ID4793944974.ID&cd=0
my servlet performs a check in the following way

//please note request.getString is the same as request.getParameter except it
//throws a certain exception if a string does not exist
String view = request.getParameter("view");
if(view= confirm)
{
             fileId= request.getString("id");
             cd = request.getParameter("cd");   


}

The problem is sometimes the address needs to be of this form
http://test.address.uk/serverArea?view=confirm&file=ID4793944974.ID%26cd=0

So when this address is entered I get an exception that the string cd doesn't exist.

This is because of there being a "%26" instead of & before the "cd" end.

Is there anyway I could solve this problem?

It is the & symbol that is used to divide the query string into name=value parameters. As there is no & symbol before the cd it is not a parameter. The %26 is the url encoded symbol for an &, this is so you can put an & into a url string without it being interpreted as a parameter divider.

What the string ?view=confirm&file=ID4793944974.ID%26cd=0

gives you is two parameters, view="confirm" and file="ID4793944974.ID&cd=0". So as per the previous post you would have to extract it from the file parameter.

If the string was ?view=confirm&file=ID4793944974.ID&cd=0 you would have three parameters view="confirm" and file="ID4793944974.ID" and cd="0"

Is there any particular reason why there has to be a %26 before the cd and not an &?

marco_polo

irlrobins wrote:

You could get the parameter for for file and then if it contains the substring "%26" break it up into file and cd parts. If it doesn't then continue on to get parameter for cd as you have given above.

The "%26" would actually be an "&" in the string returned by get parameter.

I have just had a thought that is making my head hurt a little. How would you pass the string "%26" as part of a parameter?

quinnd6

I think I fixed the problem using decoder and substring and indexof.

What am I wondering about now is when the address is
http://test.address.uk/serverArea?view=confirm&file=ID4793944974.ID&cd=0

using URLDecoder.decode(file)

I get ID4793944974.ID&cd=0 so the %26 is converted to an &.

when the address is
http://test.address.uk/serverArea?view=confirm&file=ID4793944974.ID%26cd=0

using decoder.decode(file)
I also get ID4793944974.ID&cd=0 for the file so %2526 also gets converted to an &.

Why are "%25" and "%2526" both decoded to "&"?

marco_polo

quinnd6 wrote:

I think I fixed the problem using decoder and substring and indexof.

What am I wondering about now is when the address is
http://test.address.uk/serverArea?view=confirm&file=ID4793944974.ID%26cd=0

using URLDecoder.decode(file)

I get ID4793944974.ID&cd=0 so the %26 is converted to an &.

when the address is
http://test.address.uk/serverArea?view=confirm&file=ID4793944974.ID%2526cd=0

using decoder.decode(file)
I also get ID4793944974.ID&cd=0 for the file so %2526 also gets converted to an &.

Why are "%25" and "%2526" both decoded to "&"?

You jus helped me figure out my previous question. %25 is the url safe encoding for the % charachter. I am guessing something like the folowing happens when you enter %2526:

%2526
(%25)26
%26
(%26)
$