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If I post (or comment on a post) in facebook with a url that contains a '*' character in the query string of the URL, facebook truncates the URL at that character.

I have checked the URL spec at http://www.w3.org/Addressing/URL/url-spec.txt and it states '*' is a valid character (in the "extra" set of characters allow).

Is this a facebook bug, or am I missing something.

I guess URL query string encoding will fix it...but would like to understand the error also.

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Try url encoding indeed –  Sergio Tulentsev Dec 22 '11 at 15:14
FYI: that rfc is a draft and is obsolete, check the tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986 , but I don't know if it changes the "*" characteristics –  Jose Antonio Dec 22 '11 at 15:45
Thanks Jose Antonio for that updated reference. I need to study it below, but '*' is listed as a "sub-delim" which might be the source of the problem.....although not clear (yet) to me what role it plays in the URL format. –  Andrew Jan 3 '12 at 21:54
Anyone with good knowledge of Facebook URL parsing out there ready to answer the question and get my vote for their answer? –  Andrew Mar 5 '12 at 21:09
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