Member Avatar for Member 164344

Hello,
I'm having some problems in decoding urls on IIS6.
When I click on URL UTF-8 encoded, resulting querystring replace any non english chars with question marks. For example, if you open http://www.qmpeople.com/ you can see a link in the middle of the page http://www.qmpeople.com/tag/%D1%84 containing an UTF-8 char properly encoded . If you click on it, results page shows incorrect querystring "404;http://www.qmpeople.com:80/tag/?" (see upper left corner)
In fact, unicode char has been replaced with a question mark. Why? I'm becoming crazy because I alredy tried a tons of different solutions.
As you can see I use a 404 custom handler to manage all tags and all pages involved use UTF-8

Thank you in advance for your help

replace the querystring yourself if you wish. When the page gets requested, set the current url to a string. Then replace all the "coded" parts with the real parts!

Member Avatar for Member 164344

Please, could you suggest me how can I do that?
Ho can I access current url by server side? I know only QueryStringMethod...
I want avoid to put an onclick() event

Thank you
Rob

Request.ServerVariables("SERVER_NAME") will return your domain name: www.daniweb.com

Request.ServerVariables("PATH_INFO") will return your extra info: "/FolderName/file.asp"

Request.ServerVariables("QUERY_STRING") will return your querystring: "id=23409&id2=9238"

Put it all together:

currentUrl = (Request.ServerVariables("SERVER_NAME") & Request.ServerVariables("PATH_INFO") & "?" & Request.ServerVariables("QUERY_STRING"))

Then do a replace:
currentUrl = Replace(currentUrl, "%20", " ")

Although, you should really avoid any kind of urlencoding period. Avoid file names with spaces, use underscores or hyphens instead.

Member Avatar for Member 164344

Thank you for your help but I already know that server variables and they cannot resolve my problem because:
- Request.ServerVariables("SERVER_NAME") is redundant at all
Request.ServerVariables("PATH_INFO") returns the path of my custom 404 erro page non file system
Request.ServerVariables("QUERY_STRING") would be OK but... the problem is that I cannot read it properly because IIS returns "404;http://www.qmpeople.com:80/tag/?" inestead of "404;http://www.qmpeople.com:80/tag/%D1%84 "

Rob

Member Avatar for Member 164344

Very strange... I just discovered that If I write http://www.qmpeople.com/tag/?%D1%84,
my querystring is shown properly. I'm becoming crazy..

Member Avatar for Member 164344

Hello SheSaidImaPregy,
no i'm not. I just use Response.Write and querystring variable

that's odd.. what are your pages called? A name of one of them that you reference to that the encoded url messes up?

Member Avatar for Member 164344

Hello,
each /tag/tagname page is virtual. By clicking on them my simple custom 404 error handler retrieve current url, extract tagname and then build a custom page for the end user.
I used Response.Write(decodeURI(Request.QueryString())) and Response.Write(decodeURIComponent(Request.QueryString())) but... nothing... If I use any UTF-8 encoded char, it replaces them with '?'
I't incredible... IIS6 fully support UTF-8 encoded urls!!?!?!
Any other suggestion?

are you specifying the UTF-8 at the top of every page? It may be reading a wrong type and converting it the way it thinks it must, then it does not come out the way you wish.

Member Avatar for Member 164344

are you specifying the UTF-8 at the top of every page? It may be reading a wrong type and converting it the way it thinks it must, then it does not come out the way you wish.

Yes, but.. nothing... it is definitively a IIS bug. Try yourself with two lines of code...
Thank you anyway

Yes, but.. nothing... it is definitively a IIS bug. Try yourself with two lines of code...
Thank you anyway

Did you try the link I posted above?
Basically it describes a similar problem.

I had the question marks in QUERY_STRING, but not in HTTP_URL.. Definitely an IIS bug, but this helped to get around it.

Member Avatar for Member 164344

After the question mark all parameters are shown properly but before it ( in a few words the .asp filename ).... nothing to do.
I use javascript instead of vbscript but it should work fine as well.
Nothing... I'm becoming crazy

After the question mark all parameters are shown properly but before it ( in a few words the .asp filename ).... nothing to do.
I use javascript instead of vbscript but it should work fine as well.
Nothing... I'm becoming crazy

Did you make sure you used HTTP_URL instead of QUERY_STRING? For me when I had this problem, it was a crucial point. The QUERY_STRING looked like this when passed to the 404 error:
some.url.com/??????[proper international stuff AFTER ?]

And the HTTP_URL looked like this:
err404.asp?some.url.com/[proper international stuff BEFORE ?]?[proper international stuff AFTER ?]

Function urlDecode(input)
	inp = Replace(input,"/","%2F")
	set conn = Server.CreateObject("MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP")
	conn.setOption(2) = SXH_SERVER_CERT_IGNORE_ALL_SERVER_ERRORS
	conn.open "GET", "http://www.neoturk.net/urldecode.asp?url=" & inp, False
	conn.send ""
	urlDecode = conn.ResponseText
End Function

To speed this up, just create a table on your db for decoded and encoded urls and read them on global.asa application.on_start section. Later put them on the application object.
Then put a check procedure for that application obj. in above function and IF decoded url not exists on app array, THEN request it one time from remote page (tip: urldecode.asp should be on different server see: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q316451) and insert it to your db and append to application array object, ELSE return the function from the application obj.

This is the best method I have ever found.
If anybody wants further details on application object, database operations etc. contact me via [email]Email Snipped[/email]
By the way, anybody can use neoturk.net/urldecode.asp freely...

You can see above method successfully working at: SNIP

I also used, HeliconTech's ISAPI_Rewrite Lite version
usage is simple: url = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_X_REWRITE_URL")
this will return the exact url directed to /404.asp

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