World: r3wp

Just percent encoding, of the percent symbol.

Is this is a bug? - url::%23 and url::# are not the same:

	>> url::%23
	== url::#

Blocked either way:

	>> qs: to-webform [q "&=#"]        
	== "q=%26%3D%23"

	>> join url:: qs
	== url::q=%2526%253D%2523

	>> load join "url::" qs
	== url::q=&=#

Henrik: OK.  Thanks!

I've been looking over R3's url handling and decoding and it needs 
more work, some of which needs to be in the native syntax.

Chris, url::%23 and url::# should not be the same. The purpose of 
percent encoding is to allow you to specify character values without 
them being treated as syntax. If you specify a # directly in an http 
url, for instance, it should be taken as the start of the anchor 
portion of the url. If you percent encode it, it shouldn't be an 
anchor.

Yep, hence the so far insurmountable problem I have.

Even tried the equivalent of - read decode-url  "uri::%23" - but 
somewhere it gets encoded again to %2523, not sure if that's specific 
to the http scheme implementation? I haven't dug enough.

Is there a reason why it should decode any percent encoded character 
on loading?

Here's the offender - how to make this work? -- http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23REBOL

Chris: I have pointed out this flaw to Carl before R3 was started, 
and provided the correct code to handle URI according to the standards...

Is it in curecode?

Don't seem to be able to register for curecode - get this message: 
"Sorry, this page cannot be displayed. Try again or contact the web 
site administrator"

ok, mention it in the curecode group, so dockimbel can look at it.

Gabriele, be sure to post the correct url parsing code here or in 
R3 chat. We will be sure to get it integrated into R3. Or you could 
integrate it yourself if you like. If there need to be specific changes 
to the url syntax as accepted by TRANSCODE, please note them here 
or in CureCode. Proper url handling is important, and now is the 
time to fix it.

I have been thinking that urls should stay percent-encoded until 
they are decoded by DECODE-URL, so that percent-encoded characters 
won't be mistaken for syntax characters. (I don't claim this is my 
idea - I think you said it earlier, and I remember that.)


Is this approach a good one? Have you thought of any gotchas or downsides 
to this? Will this require that urls have an associated decoded version 
that would be stored as well as the character version? Do you think 
we could get away with TRANSCODE enforcing the initial rules, then 
not checking again until it comes time for DECODE-URL to be called 
(on OPEN, for instance)?

Your code in Qtask for this was somewhat complex, but could be simplified 
with the new PARSE. Clarity is key here :)

The main gotcha so far to the keep-encoded approach is whether INSERT 
and APPEND should do some magic percent encoding or not. It seems 
that it may be a better approach to just assume that the programmer 
knows what they are doing and just insert what they say to insert 
as is, as long as the url character set restrictions are met. This 
would mean that the programmer would need to handle their own percent 
encoding where needed, and that INSERT or APPEND would not do any 
encoding or decoding. Or perhaps some non-syntax characters, such 
as space, could be encoded by MOLD instead of rejected and DECODE-URL 
just adjusted to not freak out when it seees them. What do you think?

I vote for NO automatic encoding.

it just makes everything totally confused and leads to very hard 
to fix bugs.

and breaks inter type linearity... if source is one type... something 
happens, when source is another type, something else happens... aaaarrrrggghhh 
 :-(

We have to do percent decoding to read urls. The question is when.

Intertype linearity is more of a guideline anyways. If types behaved 
identically, there wouldn't be point to more than one :)

its a question of taste, in R2 a lot of the series handling stuff 
in some types alienate me more than anything.

for urls, I'll let you guys assess it... I'm the kind of guy that 
will do all with the string and just convert it to url at the end, 
 its just much more useable that way... you have a better control 
over stuff like "/" in the path anyways.

I think I'd look for at least the following behaviour:

	>> url::%23#
	== url::%23#
	>> join url:: "%23#"
	== url::%23#

 >> join url:: " " ; space is not in the uri spec, so could arguably 
 be converted
	== url:: 
	>> read url::%23# ; dependent on the scheme, I guess
	== "GET %23"


The problem with magic percent encoding is with the special characters. 
 As it is now, it is impossible (so far as I can ascertain) to build 
an http url that encodes special characters eg "#=&%" - Twitter being 
a great case where an encoded # is integral to the service.  Given 
though that the list of special characters is short and well defined, 
perhaps they could be the exception to a magic encoding rule.

I have noticed the new developments in specifying bitsets. The NOT 
feature is potentially useful but needs much more work. E.g. there 
is no way to programmatically find out that a bitset has been specified 
with NOT. Try the following code: 
>> equal? charset [" "] charset [not " "] 
== true

Besides a logic-valued function to determine if a bitset is specified 
wih NOT, one needs all functions (natives, actions) that work on 
bitsets to cater for the NOT-specification. So far, most of them 
plainly ignore this.

I think that you should CureCode it :-)

Brian... in how many places do I have to post it? Will a new place 
come out next here, and you'll tell me to make sure it's posted there?

We have to do percent decoding to read urls. The question is when.

 - The standard TELLS you when... my document too... but since everything 
 moves every few months, things get lost and forgotten. (besides, 
 it could have been fixed back then, so there would be no need to 
 worry about it now...)

next here

next here
 = "next year"

what moves?

There is CC for tickets, and there might be DocBase articles. One 
user "volunteered", reorganised it, and it got totally messy :-)

Then there is official R3 docs ....

BrianH: could you please look at my comment to #1343? :-)

what moves?


If you think, you might be able to figure out, which moves Gabriele 
talk about. (And you don't have to answer or comment this. Less noise 
and more thinking would be good for a change.)

I have Curecoded part of it in #1328. I would be so happy to believe 
that all of this is still coming. Brian/Carl?

Geomol - my question was rhetorical. I think I do understand what 
Gabriele means, I just don't agree with the outcome. There are clear 
places where to post, easy as that. It is a bit difficult sometimes 
to get Carl's attention, but 80 tickets a month get such an attention. 
The development process of R3 might look chaotic, jumping from one 
area to the other, but if we want, and we care, we know how to get 
such an attention. 


I for one asked Carl privately about your concern towards R3 speed 
in certain situations. And you know what? I got some answer too. 
I asked Carl to comment to your ticket, he did so. In few hours. 
You could do just the same, no? It is very easy to become a naysayer, 
to express some worries, etc., but other thing is to actaully act, 
not just talk, and then your saying applies - "less noise and more 
thinking (and acting) would be good for a change" :-)


.... and please - I think I don't need any guides on what should 
I comment, or not. But the fact is, that I don't want to let anyone 
to dismiss the hard work which is being put into R3. I don't care 
about myself at all, but I see it at least as dishonest to those, 
who really try to bring R3 out, and we have few such friends here 
...

BrianH: 'call in R3 is more low level, right? I would like to do 
following thing - I want to have few powerpoint presentations running 
in a loop. In R2, I could use call/wait, and once the presentation 
is finished, the console returned. In R3, there are no refinemenst 
as /wait, /output.


Is there any equivalence? Was R2 using "start" command in windows? 
I tried with "start", but got following error:

>> call "start /WAIT powerpnt /S test.ppt"

** Access error: external process failed: "Systém nemùže nalézt uvedený 
soubor.^
M^/"
** Where: call
** Near: call "start /WAIT powerpnt /S test.ppt"

hmm, even if I use: 

>> call "cmd /c start /WAIT powerpnt /S test.ppt"


... it behaves in an async manner. It is a bit difficult without 
some R2 features. I had another plan in mind - I still have some 
R2 wrapper for Win32API funcs like launching app, moving window, 
setting its position, finding window by name, etc. (it originated 
from Gregg's send-keys dialect). But with R3, we don't have DLL interface 
anymore.


Now I wonder, if I should write an extension, or there is some plan 
to adress #1223?


I can use R2 as an interim solution, just wondering which way we 
go in R3, in regards to 'call. If I should start to think Extension 
way, or wait for 'call being enhanced?

you mean you're going to use REBOL TWO?  why?  I thought we should 
all be using R3   ;-D

I plan to use R3. I defined what makes R3 beta a good release, and 
adressing 'call is one of those points. CGI/IO was already adressed.

Well, I need to calm down ... I am out of this place for some time 
....

Pekr, I did this interface some time ago. It is based on a previous 
implementation from J.F. Theis, and is implemented as a TCP-IP server. 
I will certainely make out of it an extension for R3, but it can 
be already be used either with R2 or R3 as soon as you are able to 
send TCP-IP commands. See http://colineau.societeg.com/rebol/r2win151.html
. Unfortunately, it seems that the host site is down right now. If 
the shutdown persists, I will put it  in some other place.

Gabriele, every time you mention a document or code that was posted 
somewhere two years ago, without providing a link, or stating which 
AltME world the file is in (with file name/path preferably), then 
it comes across as useless complaining. If you want something done, 
say so. If you want to say that you *already did something*, prove 
it. Show me. Complaints about a time before the restart of the R3 
project aren't relevant to the current project. Live in the now :)

The standard TELLS you when

 - No it doesn't. The standard doesn't cover R3 internals, not even 
 in a generic non-language-specific way. The "when" I was talking 
 about has nothing to do with the encoding itself - it has to do with 
 internal data formats.

As for where things go, we built places for such things (as mentioned 
above) and they haven't moved in a year.

wouldn't it make sense for TRIM/WITH to be able to use a bitset?

>> trim/with "abc" charset "ac"
** Script error: trim does not allow bitset! for its str argument