Long, Long… Long URLs
I had occasion today to hunt up online a decision of the European Court of Justice and to link to it. The ECJ provides links that may be the longest URL I’ve ever seen. I illustrate with a typical example:
http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=en&newform=newform&Submit=Submit
&alljur=alljur&
amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;
amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;jurcdj=jurcdj&jurtpi=
jurtpi&jurtfp=jurtfp&alldocrec=alldocrec&docj
=docj&docor=docor&docop=docop&docav=docav
&docsom=docsom&docinf=docinf&
amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;
amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;a
mp;alldocnorec=alldocnorec&docnoj=docnoj&
docnoor=docnoor&typeord=ALLTYP&allcommjo
=allcommjo&affint=affint&affclose=affclose&numaff
=C54%2F05+&ddatefs=&mdatefs=&ydatefs=
&ddatefe=&
amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;
amp;amp;mdatefe=&ydatefe=&nomusuel=&domaine
=&mots=&resmax=100
Obviously what’s happening here is that the program is providing for all possible perms and combs for the production of a record, thus the endlessly repeated “amp;” which the html code for an ampersand (gone wrong, as it happens, because it’s oddly self-referring, . . . [more]