# GitWeb and atom feed links 2 messages from 2012-02-13 to 2012-02-13. Participants: Heiko W. Rupp, Jakub Narebski. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/29618 ## Heiko W. Rupp, 2012-02-13 20:43 Subject: GitWeb and atom feed links Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/F3741779-8DDA-4275-BB68-24D02297C702%40pilhuhn.de ``` Hi, ( got this email from Junio ) when you e.g. look at http://git.kernel.org/?p=git/git.git;a=summary and then the lower right, there are two buttons for feeds. If you click on e.g. atom, you end up with an url of http://git.kernel.org/?p=git/git.git;a=atom where the output is not a feed in atom format, but plain html with tables etc. If you change the url to http://git.kernel.org/?p=git/git.git&a=atom the output is a correct atom feed (same for rss). I've traced it down in my copy of gitweb to sub git_footer_html { ... $href_params{'action'} = lc($format); print $cgi->a({-href => href(%href_params), -title => "$href_params{'-title'} $format feed", -class => $feed_class}, $format)."\n"; and here to the usage of href() Locally I've modified that to $href_params{'action'} = lc($format); my $hr = "?p=$project&a="; $hr .= lc($format); print $cgi->a({-href => $hr, -title => "$href_params{'-title'} $format feed", -class => $feed_class}, $format)."\n"; and it works. Attached is a patch against current master that reflects above change Heiko -- Heiko Rupp hwr@pilhuhn.de Blog: http://javablogs.com/ViewBlog.action?id=14468 ``` ## Jakub Narebski, 2012-02-13 22:17 Subject: Re: GitWeb and atom feed links Message-ID: <201202132317.35255.jnareb@gmail.com> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/201202132317.35255.jnareb%40gmail.com In-Reply-To: ``` Heiko W. Rupp wrote: > > when you e.g. look at http://git.kernel.org/?p=git/git.git;a=summary > and then the lower right, there are two buttons for feeds. Yes, [Atom] and [RSS], for different formats of the same feed. > If you click on e.g. atom, you end up with an url of > http://git.kernel.org/?p=git/git.git;a=atom > where the output is not a feed in atom format, but plain html with > tables etc. > > If you change the url to http://git.kernel.org/?p=git/git.git&a=atom > the output is a correct atom feed (same for rss). I don't know what is the source of bug you are seeing; I suspect some trouble with output caching that git.kernel.org fork of gitweb has added, but this isn't it. Those two forms of 'atom' URL are equivalent. Wikipedia says in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query_string: "* The query string is composed of a series of field-value pairs. * The field-value pairs are each separated by an equals sign. The equals sign may be omitted if the value is an empty string. * The series of pairs is separated by the ampersand, '&' or semicolon, ';'. [...] W3C recommends that all web servers support semicolon separators in the place of ampersand separators.[4]" [4]: http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/appendix/notes.html#h-B.2.2 "B.2.2 Ampersands in URI attribute values ---------------------------------------- The URI that is constructed when a form is submitted may be used as an anchor-style link (e.g., the href attribute for the A element). Unfortunately, the use of the "&" character to separate form fields interacts with its use in SGML attribute values to delimit character entity references. For example, to use the URI "http://host/?x=1&y=2" as a linking URI, it must be written or . 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." CGI(3pm) says: "-newstyle_urls Separate the name=value pairs in CGI parameter query strings with semi- colons rather than ampersands. For example: ?name=fred;age=24;favorite_color=3 Semicolon-delimited query strings are always accepted, and will be emitted by self_url() and query_string(). newstyle_urls became the default in version 2.64." -- Jakub Narebski Poland ```