Trying to understand why pasting the first link works but not the second one.
Breakdown of the URL, for a clearer view:
Encoded version: [works]
http%3A%2F%2FsomeSite.com
%2FDownload.ashx
%3Frequest
%3DIL7zxW6ETqiYU6cThSNKL8MpY
%252bCRIVFZAVhd8DYPG85C1Uhdd
%252f2hqqmoObeNmuS3dg4bDgGBb0kUUxGZhej89kTaLBHBXS
%252bq3tlaEk2uMEcbWlUZzZQs00sirwZ2IvAvoSpU7HC3N1FaYSNciQ4iHNNmTU
%252f6uMypNlPOJ6enlbZ1OrrYODkaMRdRfGKEba
%252brusdryM4gp
%252bopi1a0gNuMQVCtj
%252bAvDcgXGOcZPNhPAnE
%253d&version=Ma88r6Z6t2JQcnVhVXgp0A%3D%3D
Decoded version: [doesn't work]
http://someSite.com
/Download.ashx
?request=
IL7zxW6ETqiYU6cThSNKL8MpY
+CRIVFZAVhd8DYPG85C1Uhdd
/2hqqmoObeNmuS3dg4bDgGBb0kUUxGZhej89kTaLBHBXS
+q3tlaEk2uMEcbWlUZzZQs00sirwZ2IvAvoSpU7HC3N1FaYSNciQ4iHNNmTU
/6uMypNlPOJ6enlbZ1OrrYODkaMRdRfGKEba
+rusdryM4gp
+opi1a0gNuMQVCtj
+AvDcgXGOcZPNhPAnE
=&version=Ma88r6Z6t2JQcnVhVXgp0A==
Can anyone clarify it for me why the second one doesn't work?
Quoting the URLencode
tag:
To “URL encode” or “percent encode” text means to encode it for use in a URL. Some characters are not valid when used as-is in URLs, and so much be URL-encoded (percent-encoded) when appearing in URLs.
The encoding was used for a reason, here because the base64 values for the request
and version
parameters contains +
, /
and =
which have their own meaning in URLs and therefore need to be URL-encoded.