Does anyone know of a more-or-less authoritative source that states that the common convention for HTTP GET/POST queries is a series of "name=value" pairs joined by "&" characters? I know I'm not just making this up, but I need to persuade someone that it is a commonly-accepted practice. Before you look... it's not in the HTTP RFCs.
Read the CGI Specification, or simply create a GET method form and submit it with a couple of different browsers and look at the URL it sends. There isn't much arguing with this.
Also...would it be accurate to say that life as a PHP and/or ColdFusion programmer is easier if the aforementioned HTTP GET/POSTs are performed in this manner? I know as a frequent user of Perl's CGI.pm module that I take this convention for granted.
Sure, but technically the separator shouldn't actually be & it should be & or simply ; In PHP you can change this in your php.ini file with the arg_separator directive. But since most browsers don't send GET-method forms this way it is somewhat pointless unless you are building something where you have full control over the clients that access your server. By the way, that was a pretty crazy cross-post! -Rasmus