URL Character Decoding

[Kirk McDonald]

If you have a link such as, e.g.:

<a href="index.py?title=Main Menu">Main menu!</a>

The space will be translated to the character code '%20' when you later
retrieve the GET data. Not knowing if there was a library function that
would convert these back to their actual characters, I've written the
following:

import re

def sub_func(m):
return chr(int(m.group()[1:], 16))

def parse_title(title):
p = re.compile(r'%[0-9][0-9]')
return re.sub(p, sub_func, title)

(I know I could probably use a lambda function instead of sub_func, but
I come to Python via C++ and am still not entirely used to them. This is
clearer to me, at least.)

I guess what I'm asking is: Is there a library function (in Python or
mod_python) that knows how to do this? Or, failing that, is there a
different regex I could use to get rid of the substitution function?

-Kirk McDonald

[Kirk McDonald]

Kirk McDonald wrote:

If you have a link such as, e.g.:

<a href="index.py?title=Main Menu">Main menu!</a>

The space will be translated to the character code '%20' when you later
retrieve the GET data. Not knowing if there was a library function that
would convert these back to their actual characters, I've written the
following:

import re

def sub_func(m):
return chr(int(m.group()[1:], 16))

def parse_title(title):
p = re.compile(r'%[0-9][0-9]')
return re.sub(p, sub_func, title)

(I know I could probably use a lambda function instead of sub_func, but
I come to Python via C++ and am still not entirely used to them. This is
clearer to me, at least.)

I guess what I'm asking is: Is there a library function (in Python or
mod_python) that knows how to do this? Or, failing that, is there a
different regex I could use to get rid of the substitution function?

-Kirk McDonald

Actually, I just noticed this doesn't really work at all. The URL
character codes are in hex, so not only does the regex not match what it
should, but sub_func fails miserably. See why I wanted a library function?

-Kirk McDonald

[Kirk McDonald]

Kirk McDonald wrote:

Actually, I just noticed this doesn't really work at all. The URL
character codes are in hex, so not only does the regex not match what it
should, but sub_func fails miserably. See why I wanted a library function?

-Kirk McDonald

Not to keep talking to myself, but looks like sub_func works fine, and
the regex just needs to be r'%[0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F]'. But even so.

-Kirk McDonald

[Paul McGuire]

"Kirk McDonald" <mo******@suad.org> wrote in message
news:43******@nntp0.pdx.net...

If you have a link such as, e.g.:

<a href="index.py?title=Main Menu">Main menu!</a>

The space will be translated to the character code '%20' when you later
retrieve the GET data.

I guess what I'm asking is: Is there a library function (in Python or
mod_python) that knows how to do this? Or, failing that, is there a
different regex I could use to get rid of the substitution function?

-Kirk McDonald

import urllib
urllib.quote("index.py?title=Main Menu") 'index.py%3Ftitle%3DMain%20Menu' urllib.unquote("index.py%3Ftitle%3DMain%20Menu")

'index.py?title=Main Menu'

[Kirk McDonald]

Paul McGuire wrote:

"Kirk McDonald" <mo******@suad.org> wrote in message
news:43******@nntp0.pdx.net...

If you have a link such as, e.g.:

<a href="index.py?title=Main Menu">Main menu!</a>

The space will be translated to the character code '%20' when you later
retrieve the GET data.

I guess what I'm asking is: Is there a library function (in Python or
mod_python) that knows how to do this? Or, failing that, is there a
different regex I could use to get rid of the substitution function?

-Kirk McDonald

import urllib
urllib.quote("index.py?title=Main Menu")
'index.py%3Ftitle%3DMain%20Menu'
urllib.unquote("index.py%3Ftitle%3DMain%20Menu ")

'index.py?title=Main Menu'

Perfect! Thanks.

-Kirk McDonald