Re: lynx-dev Re: 8-bit characters in EDITTEXTAREA

[Klaus Weide]

On Wed, 10 Feb 1999, Kim DeVaughn wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Feb 10, 1999, Ismael Cordeiro (address@hidden) said:
> | Is there any RFC or similar document saying that control characters are not
> | allowed in TEXTAREA?
> 
> I don't know.  I asked the same question when I started working on this.

9, 10, 13 (TAB, CR, LF) are the only ones allowed in HTML, so there is
no valid way for a document to have a TEXTAREA pre-filled with text
containing any other control characters.  (See the usual HTML specs.)

That doesn't necessarily mean that a browser must not allow entering
of text containing other control character values; and as far as
submitting the resulting form contents goes, I don't see a problem
sending them (as long as they are appropriately escaped).  But...

> What I *do* know is that if they *are* present, the submit'ed data can get
> munged in a variety of ways, not to mention causing the cursor movement,
> and rendering problems described above.
> 
> Whether that is "by spec", or a "lynxism", I do not know.

There's nothing that requires it and nothing that forbids it, as far
as I know.  It just doesn't seem to make much sense.  Arguably control
chars aren't really part of "text".  Many scripts etc. at the
receiving end of a submission of such text would probably break
anyway.

    Klaus