Unescaping ASP vbscript escaped string

[Vance Kessler]

We are trying write a new ASP.NET page to work with an existing
stateless ASP application. The ASP application creates a cookie and
of course stores the cookie values as escaped strings (using the
vbscript escape function). I am have a terrible time 'unescaping'
that string with C# under ASP.NET.

I have tried the following:
HttpUtility.UrlDecode
HttpUtility.HtmlDecode (this should not work but I tried it)
System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Server.UrlDecode
System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Server.HtmlDecode (tried this too)

They all return the same string back or a slightly unescaped version.
Is there something about the way VBScript's escape works that is not
compatible with UrlDecode? Is there something about accessing this
through HttpCookie that changes things? Will I have to write my own
function to decode this or is there some other functions I can access
that will do this?

Thanks

[Eric Lawrence [MSFT]]

It should be trivial to write your own function to unescape-- simply walk
the string character by character. If the string contains a % then the next
two characters should be digits. Convert the %xx to a character of value
xx. If the % is followed by a character "u", the next 4 characters are
digits containing a character value.

Note that the VBScript escape function is not the same as URL Encode.
--
Thanks,

Eric Lawrence
Program Manager
Assistance and Worldwide Services

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"Vance Kessler" <vk******@peachtree.com> wrote in message
news:ae*************************@posting.google.co m...

We are trying write a new ASP.NET page to work with an existing
stateless ASP application. The ASP application creates a cookie and
of course stores the cookie values as escaped strings (using the
vbscript escape function). I am have a terrible time 'unescaping'
that string with C# under ASP.NET.

I have tried the following:
HttpUtility.UrlDecode
HttpUtility.HtmlDecode (this should not work but I tried it)
System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Server.UrlDecode
System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Server.HtmlDecode (tried this too)

They all return the same string back or a slightly unescaped version.
Is there something about the way VBScript's escape works that is not
compatible with UrlDecode? Is there something about accessing this
through HttpCookie that changes things? Will I have to write my own
function to decode this or is there some other functions I can access
that will do this?

Thanks

[Vance Kessler]

The solution is to use JScript unescape function. Like this:
using Microsoft.JScript;
..
..
..
System.Web.HttpCookie oCookie = Request.Cookies["<NameOfCookieDomain>"];
string sEscapedValue = oCookie.Values["<NameOfCookie>"];
string sValue = Server.UrlDecode(sEscapedValue);
sValue = Microsoft.JScript.GlobalObject.unescape(sValue);
vk******@peachtree.com (Vance Kessler) wrote in message news:<ae*************************@posting.google.c om>...

We are trying write a new ASP.NET page to work with an existing
stateless ASP application. The ASP application creates a cookie and
of course stores the cookie values as escaped strings (using the
vbscript escape function). I am have a terrible time 'unescaping'
that string with C# under ASP.NET.

I have tried the following:
HttpUtility.UrlDecode
HttpUtility.HtmlDecode (this should not work but I tried it)
System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Server.UrlDecode
System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Server.HtmlDecode (tried this too)

They all return the same string back or a slightly unescaped version.
Is there something about the way VBScript's escape works that is not
compatible with UrlDecode? Is there something about accessing this
through HttpCookie that changes things? Will I have to write my own
function to decode this or is there some other functions I can access
that will do this?

Thanks