LYNX-DEV URL comparisons

[Karl-Johan Noren]

According to every specification regarding URL:s and HTTP there
is (RFC 1945 - HTTP 1.0, RFC 2068 - HTTP 1.1, RFC 1738, absolute
URL:s) characters that are defined as "national" in RFC 1738
should be %-escaped in URL:s. In practice, this is not often
done, and often also inconsistently. This is especially the case
with the tilde '~' (ASCII 126) character, which should be escaped
as %7e or %7E.

In fact, RFC 2068 states outright:

   Characters other than those in the "reserved" and "unsafe" sets
   (see section 3.2) are equivalent to their ""%" HEX HEX" encodings.

Even so, Lynx 2.7 (in case this is not fixed with 2.7.1) does
not treat '~', '%7e' and '%7E' as equivalent when comparing
URL:s. This has the effect of that exactly the same document might
be loaded multiple times. I assume that this is also the case of
every other character with an equivalent % HEX HEX encoding.

I therefore ask that you implement this - I am sure - very small
addition to the next version of Lynx. It would make a great
browser even greater.

Karl-Johan Norén (Noren with acute e) -- address@hidden
http://www.dsv.su.se/~k-j-nore/
 - To believe people are as stupid as one believes is
   stupider than one can believe

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