http / browser help: changing url in location window

[Python]

On Thu, 2006-02-02 at 01:46 -0500, Bill McGonigle wrote:
> On Feb 1, 2006, at 14:22, Python wrote:
> 
> > Aha.  You are suggesting that I stuff the form variables into the
> > location URL.  Then the GET would include the variables.  It would be 
> > an
> > ugly looking URL, but the path part would match the form.
> 
> How much data are we talking?  If it's all multiple choice you can do 
> some great bitwise compression and have a tiny URL state path part.  
> Base 64 gets you six bits per character before compression.  However, 
> if there's lots of freeform text you might overflow some buffers in 
> some browsers on the length of the URL.

The survey results are mostly multiple choice responses.  There is some
text.  The responses are saved in a hashmap.  The pickled (serialized)
hashmap and a seeded md5 signature are encoded Base-64 and included in
the form as hidden variables.  The normal (uncompressed) length at the
end is mid hundreds of bytes, so this could work.

The md5 signature is probably overkill since everything we are storing
originated with the client and I can not come up with any likely reason
for someone to flood the server with synthetic survey results, however
the signature is easy to do and I'd rather be safe than sorry.

I will finish getting all other aspects working and then revisit the URL
display.

> 
> 
> -Bill
> 
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Lloyd Kvam
Venix Corp