[ale] Data encoding in a web page

[dcorbin at machturtle.com (David Corbin)]

Certain strings need to be encoded when being sent as part of a URL:

special characters (including plus signs and percents) get converted to %xx 
where xx is the hex value of the character).
spaces get convert to plus signs.

Not sure if this happens on POST requests, but you could try it that way, or 
you could just use java.net.URLEncoder.encode()

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/net/URLEncoder.html

On Sunday 19 October 2003 06:01, Christopher Fowler wrote:
> I'm trying to send data that looks like this
>
> "dDwyMTQxMjc4NDIxO3Q8O2w8aTwxPjs%2BO2w8dDw7bDxpPDA%2BOz47bDx0PDtsPGk8MT47Pj
>ts"
>
> But when I sniff the connection it gets sent like this:
> "dDwyMTQxMjc4NDIxO3Q8O2w8aTwxPjs%252BO2w8dDw7bDxpPDA%252BOz47bDx0PDtsPGk8MT
>47Pjts"
>
>
> I'm doing this in Java so my HTTPClient is converting the data.  My main
> issue is that the tag in the form looks like this:
>
> <input type="hidden" name="__VIEWSTATE"
> value="dDwyMTQxMjc4NDIxO3Q8O2w8aTwxPjs+O2w8dDw7bDxpPDA+Oz47bDx0PDtsPGk8MT47
>PjtsPHQ8O2w8aTwxPjs+O2w8dDw7bDxpPDE+Oz47bDx0PDtsPGk8Mj47aTwzPjtpPDk+O2k8MTI+
>Oz47bDx0PDtsPGk8MT47PjtsPHQ8O2w8aTwwPjs+O2w8dDx0PDs7bDxpPDA+Oz4+Ozs+Oz4+Oz4+
>O3Q8O2w8aTwxPjs+O2w8dDw7bDxpPDA+Oz47bDx0PHQ8OztsPGk8MD47Pj47Oz47Pj47Pj47dDw7
>bDxpPDE+Oz47bDx0PDtsPGk8MD47PjtsPHQ8dDw7O2w8aTwwPjs+Pjs7Pjs+Pjs+Pjt0PDtsPGk8
>MT47PjtsPHQ8O2w8aTwwPjs+O2w8dDx0PDs7bDxpPDA+Oz4+Ozs+Oz4+Oz4+Oz4+Oz4+Oz4+Oz4+
>Oz4+Oz4+Oz5ZeStnfajPMQ9tQDyvFfTUkgUDJg==" />
>
>
> It is not very long.  But when I submit the web page using netscape the
> data value sent in __VIEWSTATE is much bigger.  What is netscape doing
> to that string?
>
> The page I'm trying to automate in Java is at:
> https://secure.sos.state.ga.us/myverification/
>
> Thanks,
> Chris Fowler
>
>
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-- 
David Corbin <dcorbin at machturtle.com>