title: Semicolon in url as a separator for query strings
body: <p>I keep hearing that W3C recommends to use ";" instead of "&amp;" as a query string separator.</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>We recommend that HTTP server implementors, and in particular, CGI
    implementors support the use of ";" in place of "&amp;" to save authors
    the trouble of escaping "&amp;" characters in this manner.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Can somebody please explain why ";" is recommended instead of "&amp;"? </p>
  
  <p>Also, i tried using <code>";"</code> instead of <code>"&amp;"</code>. (example: <code>.com?str1=val1;str2=val2</code> ) . When reading as <code>Request.QueryString["str1"]</code> i get "<code>val1;str2=val2</code>". So if <code>";"</code> is recommended, how do we read the query strings?</p>