Re: browse-url does not allow url with a dollar sign

[Kevin Rodgers]

Harald Maier wrote:
> Start emacs with 'emacs -q'. Put into the *scratch* buffer the following line:
>
> 
http://www.warentest.de/pls/sw/SW$NAV.Startup?p_KNR=0&p_E1=2&p_E2=0&p_E3=50&p_E4=0&p_Inh=I:1162925
>
> Place point to the url and then type in the following function:
>
>   M-x browse-url-at-point
>
> The browser program receives as url the following string:
>
> 
http://www.warentest.de/pls/sw/SW.Startup?p_KNR=0&p_E1=2&p_E2=0&p_E3=50&p_E4=0&p_Inh=I:1162925
>
> It seems that the dollar sign '$' in the url needs to be escaped.

I don't see why this is happening.  The URL is returned verbatim by the
browse-url-url-at-point function and passed to browse-url, and then to
browse-url-browser-function (default: browse-url-netscape).  None of the
browser functions defined in browse-url.el invoke the browser program
via a shell, which would require the $ (and any other shell
metacharacters) to be quoted -- the only exception is
browse-url-default-windows-browser, which invokes "start" on MS-DOS and
does quote the URL.

--
Kevin Rodgers