Reading special characters from URL query string

Question

I have a situation where the user is able to enter any characters they want in a URL query string.

Example:

http://localhost/default.aspx?ID=a‡jljglkjg

How can I accept special characters such as ‡, ˆ, and † in asp.net from a URL query string? I am finding that when I attempt to retrieve these URL query string these special characters gets replaced with a “?”.

Note: The user inputs these query string into the URL.

why not make UrlEncode ? is this not permitted ? And second, how you try to retrieve this characters - with what function ? — Aristos
– Aristos, Commented Jul 20, 2011 at 20:38
I am using Request.QueryString to retrieve these characters. — m0g
– m0g, Commented Jul 20, 2011 at 20:40

Aliostad · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-20 20:38:15Z

1

This URL is wrong according to RFC.

If they are using browser, it would normally do the ecndoing required.
If it is done by JavaScript, use encodeURIcomponent
If it is a C# app, using HttpUtility.UrlEncode here

answered Jul 20, 2011 at 20:38

Aliostad

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5 Comments

m0g Over a year ago

How is it possible that classic ASP can process this request correctly but not asp.net?

m0g Over a year ago

Also caret(^) is a valid request but that also gets replaced with a question mark. Why is that?

Aliostad Over a year ago

ASP can since it probably cleans it up before processing. With ^ I think gets confused.

m0g Over a year ago

In the case of asp.net then is it possible to clean it up before processing as well or solve this problem somehow?

Aliostad Over a year ago

It could be. Have a look at URL-Rewrite.

Yuriy Faktorovich · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-20 20:37:15Z

0

URLs can only be sent over the Internet using the ASCII character-set.

Those characters will always be excluded, you need to find another way to do it.

answered Jul 20, 2011 at 20:37

Yuriy Faktorovich

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1 Comment

m0g Over a year ago

I have a legacy application using classic ASP which is able to correctly take in this query string and display it back out again.

HABO · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-20 20:43:32Z

See http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_urlencode.asp for more information about valid URLs and encoding special characters.

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