browse-url does not allow url with a dollar sign

browse-url does not allow url with a dollar sign

[Harald Maier]

This bug report will be sent to the Free Software Foundation,
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Please write in English, because the Emacs maintainers do not have
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In GNU Emacs 21.3.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, Motif Version 2.2.2)
 of 2003-05-20 on ate
configured using `configure  --with-x-toolkit=motif'
Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: de_DE@euro
  locale-coding-system: iso-latin-9
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:

Start emacs with 'emacs -q'. Put into the *scratch* buffer the following line:

http://www.warentest.de/pls/sw/SW$NAV.Startup?p_KNR=0&p_E1=2&p_E2=0&p_E3=50&p_E4=0&p_Inh=I:1162925

Place point to the url and then type in the following function:

  M-x browse-url-at-point

The browser program receives as url the following string:

http://www.warentest.de/pls/sw/SW.Startup?p_KNR=0&p_E1=2&p_E2=0&p_E3=50&p_E4=0&p_Inh=I:1162925

It seems that the dollar sign '$' in the url needs to be escaped.

Harald

Re: browse-url does not allow url with a dollar sign

[Kevin Rodgers]

Harald Maier wrote:
 > Start emacs with 'emacs -q'. Put into the *scratch* buffer the following line:
 >
 > http://www.warentest.de/pls/sw/SW$NAV.Startup?p_KNR=0&p_E1=2&p_E2=0&p_E3=50&p_E4=0&p_Inh=I:1162925
 >
 > Place point to the url and then type in the following function:
 >
 >   M-x browse-url-at-point
 >
 > The browser program receives as url the following string:
 >
 > http://www.warentest.de/pls/sw/SW.Startup?p_KNR=0&p_E1=2&p_E2=0&p_E3=50&p_E4=0&p_Inh=I:1162925
 >
 > It seems that the dollar sign '$' in the url needs to be escaped.

I don't see why this is happening.  The URL is returned verbatim by the
browse-url-url-at-point function and passed to browse-url, and then to
browse-url-browser-function (default: browse-url-netscape).  None of the
browser functions defined in browse-url.el invoke the browser program
via a shell, which would require the $ (and any other shell
metacharacters) to be quoted -- the only exception is
browse-url-default-windows-browser, which invokes "start" on MS-DOS and
does quote the URL.

-- 
Kevin Rodgers

Re: browse-url does not allow url with a dollar sign

[Juri Linkov]

Harald Maier <harald@maierh.de> writes:
> Start emacs with 'emacs -q'. Put into the *scratch* buffer the following line:
>
> http://www.warentest.de/pls/sw/SW$NAV.Startup?p_KNR=0&p_E1=2&p_E2=0&p_E3=50&p_E4=0&p_Inh=I:1162925
>
> Place point to the url and then type in the following function:
>
>   M-x browse-url-at-point
>
> The browser program receives as url the following string:
>
> http://www.warentest.de/pls/sw/SW.Startup?p_KNR=0&p_E1=2&p_E2=0&p_E3=50&p_E4=0&p_Inh=I:1162925

Even if you said you started emacs with 'emacs -q', I don't know what
default browser you use.  A suitable browser is selected by attempting
in this order: gnome-moz-remote, Mozilla, Galeon, Netscape, Mosaic,
IXI Mosaic, Lynx in an xterm, MMM, Konqueror, W3.  It seems that
you are using a Mozilla-based browser.  It substitutes environment
variables references even when they are quoted in the program arguments.
So, the dollar sign '$' in the url needs to be encoded in browse-url.el.

Index: emacs/lisp/net/browse-url.el
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/emacs/emacs/lisp/net/browse-url.el,v
retrieving revision 1.32
diff -c -r1.32 browse-url.el
*** emacs/lisp/net/browse-url.el	1 Sep 2003 15:45:33 -0000	1.32
--- emacs/lisp/net/browse-url.el	27 Feb 2004 01:38:23 -0000
***************
*** 818,825 ****
  used instead of `browse-url-new-window-flag'."
    (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: "))
    ;; URL encode any `confusing' characters in the URL.  This needs to
!   ;; include at least commas; presumably also close parens.
!   (while (string-match "[,)]" url)
      (setq url (replace-match
  	       (format "%%%x" (string-to-char (match-string 0 url))) t t url)))
    (let* ((process-environment (browse-url-process-environment))
--- 818,825 ----
  used instead of `browse-url-new-window-flag'."
    (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: "))
    ;; URL encode any `confusing' characters in the URL.  This needs to
!   ;; include at least commas; presumably also close parens and dollars.
!   (while (string-match "[,)$]" url)
      (setq url (replace-match
  	       (format "%%%x" (string-to-char (match-string 0 url))) t t url)))
    (let* ((process-environment (browse-url-process-environment))
***************
*** 889,896 ****
  used instead of `browse-url-new-window-flag'."
    (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: "))
    ;; URL encode any `confusing' characters in the URL.  This needs to
!   ;; include at least commas; presumably also close parens.
!   (while (string-match "[,)]" url)
      (setq url (replace-match
  	       (format "%%%x" (string-to-char (match-string 0 url))) t t url)))
    (let* ((process-environment (browse-url-process-environment))
--- 889,896 ----
  used instead of `browse-url-new-window-flag'."
    (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: "))
    ;; URL encode any `confusing' characters in the URL.  This needs to
!   ;; include at least commas; presumably also close parens and dollars.
!   (while (string-match "[,)$]" url)
      (setq url (replace-match
  	       (format "%%%x" (string-to-char (match-string 0 url))) t t url)))
    (let* ((process-environment (browse-url-process-environment))
***************
*** 942,949 ****
  used instead of `browse-url-new-window-flag'."
    (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: "))
    ;; URL encode any `confusing' characters in the URL.  This needs to
!   ;; include at least commas; presumably also close parens.
!   (while (string-match "[,)]" url)
      (setq url (replace-match
  	       (format "%%%x" (string-to-char (match-string 0 url))) t t url)))
    (let* ((process-environment (browse-url-process-environment))
--- 942,949 ----
  used instead of `browse-url-new-window-flag'."
    (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: "))
    ;; URL encode any `confusing' characters in the URL.  This needs to
!   ;; include at least commas; presumably also close parens and dollars.
!   (while (string-match "[,)$]" url)
      (setq url (replace-match
  	       (format "%%%x" (string-to-char (match-string 0 url))) t t url)))
    (let* ((process-environment (browse-url-process-environment))
***************
*** 991,998 ****
  used instead of `browse-url-new-window-flag'."
    (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: "))
    ;; URL encode any `confusing' characters in the URL.  This needs to
!   ;; include at least commas; presumably also close parens.
!   (while (string-match "[,)]" url)
      (setq url (replace-match
  	       (format "%%%x" (string-to-char (match-string 0 url))) t t url)))
    (let* ((process-environment (browse-url-process-environment))
--- 991,998 ----
  used instead of `browse-url-new-window-flag'."
    (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: "))
    ;; URL encode any `confusing' characters in the URL.  This needs to
!   ;; include at least commas; presumably also close parens and dollars.
!   (while (string-match "[,)$]" url)
      (setq url (replace-match
  	       (format "%%%x" (string-to-char (match-string 0 url))) t t url)))
    (let* ((process-environment (browse-url-process-environment))

-- 
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/

Re: browse-url does not allow url with a dollar sign

[Harald Maier]

Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org> writes:

>
> Could you confirm that the following patch fixes your problem?
>

Sorry, I was some days not in my office and at my desk. I tried your
patch just now and it works very well. Thanks for fixing that.

Harald