Can a URL contain a semicolon and still be valid?

Question

I am using a regular expression to convert plain text URL to clickable links.

@(https?://([-\\w\\.]+)+(:\\d+)?(/([\\w/_\\.-]*(\\?\\S+)?)?)?)@

Ho

Answer 1

The W3C encourages CGI programs to accept ; as well as & in query strings (i.e. treat ?name=fred&age=50 and ?name=fred;age=50 the same way). This is supposed to be because & has to be encoded as & in HTML whereas ; doesn't.