I originally asked the following question, to get some anwsers on how to handle special characters in an URL (GET) request for my Web Api:

Web Api 2 routing issue with special characters in URL

Encoding was obviously the way to go. But in order to get everything working, i had to do a pretty nasty workaround. And now, Im' at the point where i don't really understand why my workaround had to be done in the first place. So, the following is my setup:

A client can call my Web Api 2, Hosted on iis 8.5, by a get request containing an email in the URL. The most extreme example would be the following email:

!$%&'*+-/=?^_`{}|~@test.com

And yes, that sucker is a valid email, which therefore the API has to support. The URL pattern is as follows:

.../api/permissions/{email}/{brand}/

So a get request would be something along the lines of this:

.../api/permissions/#!$%&'*+-/=?^_`{}|~@test.com/economy

As the marked answer to my other question suggests, encoding this url is obviously a necessity. But this left me with a couple of other issues, such as "double escape of characters not allowed", and some specific "404 - not found" (routing could not pass the url). This i could mange to handle with the following settings for iis:

<system.web>   ...   <httpRuntime requestPathInvalidCharacters=""/></system.web><system.webServer>   <security>      <requestFiltering allowDoubleEscaping="true"/>   </security>   ...</system.webServer>

Now i was able to call my method with those pesky special characters, and everything was fine. But i hit another bump. The email specified above, #!$%&'*+-/=?^_`{}|~@test.com, resulted in a 404 - not found. An actual 404 - not found. The routing couldn't handle the request url:

[Route("{email}/{brand}"]

As I understand it, the iis decodes the request url, passes it on to the iis request pipeline, it is then picked up by the web api and run through the http message handlers before hitting the controller. In the controller, i could clearly see that the email part of the url was no longer encoded (provided i used a simple encoded email. the encoded email "#!$%&'*+-/=?^_`{}|~@test.com" still responded 404). I quickly figured, that the routing probably couldn't handle the fragmentation inside the url path, as the iis passes on a decoded url to the web api. So i had to get the url reencoded in the iis before handed on to the web api.

This i was able to make a workaround for, by using Url ReWrite. It reencoded that specific part of the url containing the email, and now the routing was handled properly with the special-character-email. The expected method was hit, and i could just decode the encoded email. To briefly sum up, this was the flow:

Request flow

Now, we have set up a LogMessageHandler which logs incoming requests and outgoing responses. When the logger logs the request.RequestUri, it is clear that the email is double encoded. But when the controller method is hit, it is only encoded once! So.. My question is, why do i have to reencode the URL in the iis for the routing to handle the request properly, when the url is already automatically encoded (and decoded again before hitting the controller)? Is this something i can configure? Can i somehow extend the scope of which the URL is encoded, all the way to the controller??

Regards

Frederik

I am seeing a weird issue when passing special characters in the url.

some of my keys in the URL have space like for example County Unique and I also have some filters which have values N/A

As per the documentation (https://kb.tableau.com/articles/issue/special-characters-in-url-parameters) when I escape the special characters and encode the url, the filters that have values like Portage (OH) do not work but filters which have values like N/A work, so if my url has the encoded value for Portage (OH) & N/A, the filter does not load with Portage (OH) selected but it does load with N/A selected. Here is a example url

&Operator=Chesapeake%2CMountaineer%5C%20Keystone%2CNorthwood%5C%20Energy%2CUS%5C%20Energy&Basin=Utica&State=Ohio&County%5C%20Unique=Portage%5C%20%5C%28OH%5C%29&Field=%2CRootstown%2CSuffield%2CWindham&Formation=Other%2CPoint%5C%20Pleasant&First%5C%20Production%5C%20Year=2011%2C2013%2CN%5C%2FA&Well%5C%20type=Gas%2COil&LastWellStatusCalc=2%5C.%5C%20DUC%2C4%5C.%5C%20Producing%2C5%5C.%5C%20Inactive%2C6%5C.%5C%20Plugged&Well%5C%20name=ASHER%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20PORT2AHSU%5C%20%5C%283413324430%5C%29%2CFRAME%5C%20UNIT%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%201H%5C%20%5C%283413324478%5C%29%2CFRAME%5C%20UNIT%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%202H%5C%20%5C%283413324477%5C%29%2CHOSEY%5C%20POR%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%206H%5C-X%5C%20%5C%283413324420%5C%29%2CSEKEL%5C%20UNIT%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%201H%5C%20%5C%283413324473%5C%29%2CSOINSKI%5C%2099%5C-04%5C-06%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20201%5C%20%5C%283413324440%5C%29%2CSOINSKI%5C%2099%5C-04%5C-06%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20202%5C%20%5C%283413324441%5C%29%2CSOINSKI%5C%20211%5C-214%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20211%5C%20%5C%283413324446%5C%29%2CSOINSKI%5C%20211%5C-214%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20212%5C%20%5C%283413324444%5C%29%2CSOINSKI%5C%20211%5C-214%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20%5C%20213%5C%20%5C%283413324443%5C%29

Now, if I keep the keys as is and don't replace the space in keys to %5C%20, the filters work with values like Portage (OH) but values like N/A do not work anymore.

Can any one please help, as to what I am doing wrong. I need to pass values which have special characters in filter values as well as my keys have a space in names.

Thanks.

For example, I have a string "H€llo, world!" for which the UTF-8 encoded value is H%E2%82%ACllo%2C%20world%21, can someone please help me to get this value in C#. I have been busting my head since morning and can't find a method or library which helps get the exact same value. Main problem is faced with special characters like ! etc.

I have tried

HttpUtility.UrlPathEncode(string str)HttpUtility.UrlEncode(string str)HttpUtility.UrlEncode(string str, Encoding e)HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(string s)WebUtility.UrlEncode etc

I'm working on a solution where need to encode string into utf-8 format, this string nothing but device name that I'm reading using BluetoothAdapter.getDefaultAdapter().name.

For one of sampple I got a string like ABC-＆ and encoding this returned ABC-%EF%BC%86 instead of ABC-%26. It was weird until further debugging which helped to identify that there is difference between & and ＆. Second one is some other character which is failing to encoded as expected.

& and ＆ both are different.

For encoding tried both URLEncoder.encode(input, "utf-8") and Uri.encode(input, "utf-8") but nothing worked.

This is just an example, there might be other character which may look like same as actual character but failed to encode. Now question are:

1. Why this difference, after all it is reading of some data from device using standard SDK API.
2. How can fix this be fixed. Find and replace with actual character could be a approach but scope is limited, there might be other unknown character.

Any suggestion around !!

I have an .avi file, which is located in a folder in my server. This folder's name has an accent mark.The thing is, when I put that file within a tag, it shows a txt file (the avi files codification, I asume) which obviously is an error. It just happens in Internet Explorer (version 11 at least) with https protocol.

This doesn't happend with mp4 files, neither with avi files which are located in a "non accented folder", neither with http protocol, neither when I paste the address directly in the browser, neither with Chrome or Firefox.

Examples to illustrate what I'm trying to say:

<a href="https://myserver.com/myAccentédFolder/myVid.avi" target="_blank">ERROR</a><a href="https://myserver.com/myNonAccentedFolder/myVid.avi" target="_blank">OK 1</a><a href="https://myserver.com/myAccentédFolder/myVid.mp4" target="_blank">OK 2</a><a href="http://myserver.com/myAccentédFolder/myVid.avi" target="_blank">OK 3</a>

So I know how to "fix" it… but what if I need all the casuistries?- Work with IE 11- The file to be .avi- The folder to have an accent mark- The address to be within a link- The address to be https protocol

What the %$&$% is going on?