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rumisongOct 9, 2007 6:25pm
I was trying to post a link onto a forum that uses bbcode ... and the link had an * in it - it was a google search link with a wildcard ... well the bbcode seemed to break the link at the point of the asterisk ... so Im thinking I need to know the %## code for an asterisk to make such a link work ...

so I have two questions:
1: what am I talking about?
and
2: where do I find what Im talking about?

ok, Im kidding ... my real questions are 1: what is that called when a %somethingsomething is used instead of an alpha character, and 2: does anyone have a list handy or can tell me about why the bbcode asterisk didnt work?

for instance, it works fine here ... well, SU converts it I see

______________________________

google.com/search [google.com/search]*%20world%22

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22what%20*%20world%22

_______________________________


... but its at the asterisk that bbcode forum broke it

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22what%20*%20world%22

and so the link just went to google search for the first word only - in this case "what" ...

so Im thinking I need to put in a %_?_ between the what%20 and the %20world to account for the asterisk wildcard ... is that right?

thanks for whatever help ...

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rumisongOct 9, 2007 6:35pm
oh, see - SU breaks the converted link too - at the asterisk ... I cant get it to link to a wildcard search using the asterisk ... hmm - thats interesting ...

when I used Thlaylis "preview post" the link did work, then when I submitted my post, it didnt ...

let me try this

yes that works fine - I couldnt get the bbcode forum to do even that for me ...

anyway thanks again for any suggestions ...

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fgvivaOct 9, 2007 6:49pm
These were provided by lerryn.....and are in the list of sites.....there is also a google how to search thread that might give you more info
>>>thread How to google!
adelaider.com/google/ [adelaider.com/google/]
googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html [googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html]

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rumisongOct 9, 2007 6:54pm
"why is my link being broken by the forum?"

____________________

250 thanks
this is actually a bb code question - and an SU question, and not a google search question ...

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ThlayliOct 10, 2007 6:28am
"when I used Thlaylis "preview post" the link did work, then when I submitted my post, it didnt"

Unfortunately StrangeJ and I did not figure out how to duplicate the broken behavior of the forum link system. It's kind of weird that it's easier to make it work properly than it is to get the results we see when we post the link. I suppose a future update of Preview Posts could seek to duplicate the forum behavior exactly, although I'd need some serious testing to be done to know exactly what that behavior is.

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rumisongOct 10, 2007 7:03am
hey T, thanks ... can you tell me what the %_ _ sort of code is called, so I can look up for a chart on the net and get me a replacement for the asterisk ... or, is that not how to fix my link problem? Do I have this wrong?

I just want to post a link with an asterisk in it, and the forums Im trying this in, are not letting me ... thats the real thing Im hoping for help with ..

danloOct 10, 2007 7:37am
let's see...

google.com/search [google.com/search]

Rumi - it's 2a
(you can check the ascii table)

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konradcOct 10, 2007 8:06am
For reference if you want the % thing, it's called URL encoding/decoding. You can write a little offline standalone JavaScript page to tell you or use this online: opinionatedgeek.com/DotNet/Tools/UrlEncode/Encode.aspx [opinionatedgeek.com/DotNet/Tools/UrlEncode/Encode.aspx]

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rumisongOct 10, 2007 8:10am
ASCII TABLE!!
yes, thank you ... thats what I needed - so I just plug in %2a, and that works ...

q=%22what%20%2a%20world%22

so that is called "ascii code" then or something? when we use the % in a url like that? Ive not learned anything about this till now ...

thanks danlo - thats just the ticket!

_____________

URL encoding ... cool, thanks konrad ...

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konradcOct 10, 2007 8:13am
Although they are related, it is not the ASCII table. The URL encoding is directly based on the US ASCII table (for now, I think we're moving more towards UTF). The 2 hexadecimal characters following the % sign is the number of the character in the US ASCII table.

P.S. "*" does not need to be escaped, but can be. See RFC 2396 the "safe" stuff are in section 2.3

Interpretation: alphanumeric and - _ . ! ~ * ' ( ) do not need to be, but can be coded.

You can find the US ASCII table on Wikipedia.


I Have A Question ??????