Name: nt126004			Date: 12/19/2001


java version "1.4.0-beta3"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.4.0-beta3-b84)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.4.0-beta3-b84, mixed mode)

Using the URLEncoder class the other day, I noticed that 'space' is encoded
to '+' instead of '%20'.  Unless I'm reading the RFC wrong, shouldn't it be
encoded to '%20'?

The information is in section 2.4.1 and 2.4.3.
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt

Here's a comment from the java.net.URLEncoder class, lines 45 and 46, that
sites the source of the special characters as an O'reilly book:


    /* The list of characters that are not encoded have been determined by
       referencing O'Reilly's "HTML: The Definitive Guide" (page 164). */


  Interestingly enough, the 3rd edition of this text indicates that '+' should be
encoded to '%20' (p. 195).

Although you would probably want to remove other code in the class that
the 'space' to '+' substitution, the fix is as simple as commenting out line 60
of the class:

	//dontNeedEncoding.set(' '); /* encoding a space to a + is done in the
encode() method */


Here is a simple test program that shows this issue.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
import java.net.URLEncoder;

public class Test
{
   public static void main(String[] args)
   {
      System.out.println("Should see %20 here: " + URLEncoder.encode("space
here"));

   }
}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
(Review ID: 137273) 
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