Strange translation in GET

[Mikael Olofsson]

Hi!

This question is certainly not related to python, but I haven't the 
slightest idea where else to post it. Since I have great confidence in 
the participants of this group, I dare to post it here. Here goes:


I have a python script that is called as

  http://wherever/whatever?a=A&b=B

The argument ends up as

  'a=A&b=B'

which is perfectly OK. When I call this script in a link on a web page
using the HTML code

  <a href="http://wherever/whatever?a=A&b=B">spam</a>

it usually works OK.


Now to the problem: 

According to my logs, this link was recently clicked by someone in Japan, 
and my script failed because the argument had somehow been translated to 

  a+AD0-A+ACY-b+AD0-B

That is, each '=' was translated to '+AD0-', and each '&' was translated
to '+ACY-'. This probably has to do with the character set used by the
caller. 


My questions are:

  Does anyone know what might have happened here?
  Shall I suspect this to happen again?
  Should I consider it worth while fixing this?

I guess this all boils down to:

  Is this _the_ Japanese standard, or only _a_ Japanese standard?

Fixing this particular peculiarity is easy, but if I can expect several 
different variations on this theme, it seems uninterresting unless there 
is a way to cover all these variations easily.

I wrote the script early, when I had little experience in Python, so I
did not use any cgi-whatever module. So I should perhaps also ask:

  Is this (and other) translation(s) covered by some snazzy module?


someone-will-probably-tell-me-to-read-some-friendly-manual-ly y'rs

/Mikael

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
E-Mail:  Mikael Olofsson <mikael at isy.liu.se>
WWW:     http://www.dtr.isy.liu.se/dtr/staff/mikael
Phone:   +46 - (0)13 - 28 1343
Telefax: +46 - (0)13 - 28 1339
Date:    25-Apr-00
Time:    11:12:26

This message was sent by XF-Mail.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------