URL: semicolon instead of question mark

Question

I'm calling a web service in this format:

It works but is this valid? I've seen the ; used as a replacement for the & but never seen such an url. I've been looking for an answer but did not find a valid one. If valid what is the meaning of this kind of url?

See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2048121/url-matrix-parameters-vs-request-parameters — , Sep 16 '13 at 14:28

Sebastiaan van den Broek · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-20T13:20:53.130

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This is a part of the path parameters and not part of the query parameters. You can find detailed information on how URLs can be built at http://www.skorks.com/2010/05/what-every-developer-should-know-about-urls/

Edit: I was actually looking for this link earlier which explains it even better and shows you some weird but valid cases: https://www.talisman.org/~erlkonig/misc/lunatech%5Ewhat-every-webdev-must-know-about-url-encoding/ (originally at the now dead url http://blog.lunatech.com/2009/02/03/what-every-web-developer-must-know-about-url-encoding)

But anyway, this is valid: http://www.blah.com/some/crazy/path.html;param1=foo;param2=bar

edited Jul 20 '16 at 13:20

answered Sep 16 '13 at 14:19

Sebastiaan van den Broek

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your second link is dead :( – drs Jul 20 '16 at 13:06
Just to let anyone know that although the certificate is invalid, the talisman url still works in 2019 – franksands Feb 25 '19 at 14:29

Dmitriy Pichugin · Answer 2 · 2018-02-09T14:12:48.773

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RFC2396 where path parameters were specified is obsolete. newer version is RFC 3986 -- this one does not have path parameters before the query string formally specified, however still has it in section 5.4.1 in examples.

edited Feb 09 '18 at 14:12

answered Feb 08 '18 at 12:59

Dmitriy Pichugin

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While this link may assist in your answer to the question, you can improve this answer by taking vital parts of the link and putting it into your answer, this makes sure your answer is still an answer if the link gets changed or removed :) – WhatsThePoint Feb 08 '18 at 13:20
link was removed. RFC number should be suffice. – Dmitriy Pichugin Feb 09 '18 at 14:14
https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3986#section-5.4.1 – acdcjunior Mar 14 '23 at 21:49

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

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This might answer your question: Semicolon as URL query separator

We recommend that HTTP server implementors, and in particular, CGI implementors support the use of ";" in place of "&" to save authors the trouble of escaping "&" characters in this manner.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

Community

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answered Sep 16 '13 at 14:16

aCa

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In my example the semicolon is used not in place of "&" but in place of "?" – Carlo Bertuccini Sep 16 '13 at 14:19
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@aCa: Your link is still about the query part, while his example is actually about path parameters. – Sebastiaan van den Broek Sep 16 '13 at 14:29

URL: semicolon instead of question mark

3 Answers3

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