Passing decimals in the URL Feb09 '06
Passing variables in the URL is "commonplace" when developing web applications.
When the variable is a simple word or number - it’s usually no problem:
http://mysite.com/index.php?accountid=634&accountname=Wilkinson
However, many times you’ll need to use certain characters, such as a space, period, or quote - in the URL, and many characters simply aren’t allowed.
For example, try passing a dollar amount:
http://mysite.com/index.php?revenue=4600.00
Notice that extra period (.) in the URL. That obviously can’t be there.
The browser will naturally escape such characters, but how do you put them back, on the other end? (at the page that processes the URL variable)
The period, in this case, is converted to this character:
%2e
(You can see a much more robust list of such conversions at W3Schools.)
So, on the other end, simply "find and replace" the period, when passing a decimal value across pages.
PHP:
str_replace( "%2e", ".", $decimal_value );
ASP:
replace( decimal_value, "%2e", "." )
In both cases, we simply search for "%2e" - and then replace that with a period (.).
Categories: ASP 
, PHP , Programming
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