[OASIS Issue Tracker] (ODATA-1539) Clarify decoding of plus character in URLs

[OASIS Issues Tracker <workgroup_mailer@lists.oasis-open.org>]

Ralf Handl created ODATA-1539:
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             Summary: Clarify decoding of plus character in URLs
                 Key: ODATA-1539
                 URL: https://issues.oasis-open.org/browse/ODATA-1539
             Project: OASIS Open Data Protocol (OData) TC
          Issue Type: Improvement
          Components: URL Conventions
    Affects Versions: V4.01_OS
            Reporter: Ralf Handl
             Fix For: V4.01_ERRATA01


OData URL is based onÂ[RFC3986|https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3986.html], which inÂ[Section 2.1 Percent-Encoding|https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3986.html#section-2.1] explicitly defines {{%20}} as the encoding for space.

Unfortunately RFC3986 is less clear on the encoding of the plus ({{+}}) character:Â[Section 2.2 Reserved Characters|https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3986.html#section-2.2]Ârecommends {{%2B}} as the encoding for plus âunless [â] specifically allowed by the URI scheme to represent data in that componentâ.

As a consequence, many URL-encoding tools, and the most commonly used browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox) do not percent-encode the plus character and retain it as a plus character.

To make matters really confusing theÂ[WhatWG URL|https://url.spec.whatwg.org/]Âspecification defines an API for manipulating URLs that - depending on how it is used - will encode space as theÂthe plus ({{+}}) character:
{code:js}
var x = new URL("http://foo?bar=a+b c")
x.href // --> http://foo/?bar=a+b%20c

var y = new URL("http://foo";)
y.searchParams.append("bar","a+b c")
y.href // --> http://foo/?bar=a%2Bb+c
{code}
Â
This raises the question on how an OData service SHOULD / MUST interpret the plus ({{+}}) character in a URL:
* does it mean plus,
* or does it mean space?

Note: the percent-encoded variants are unambiguous:
* {{%20}} means space
* {{%2B}} means plus
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