A technical Q surrounding links

max characters for href attribute

[Mike12345]

I was wondering if anyone could help with this question. Im not sure ths is the most appropriate forum for the Q.

How many characters can you have between ""'s in a href before it stops working?

Ive got a link with lots of characters between the "'s and its doesnt seem to be working, before i trim it i wanted to know if anyone could tell me what the limit is.

TIA :)

[Mike12345]

Any takers

[Dreamquick]

In theory the longest a URL can be is 1024 characters, including any querystring information.

Are you having problems getting a browser to follow the link or are search engines not following the link?

- Tony

[Paul in South Africa]

This article [jetools.com] suggests that the limit varies depending on the browser and the server. It also suggests a limit of 255 characters because some proxy servers can assign arbitrary length restrictions on URLs.

[Mike12345]

Ta Dreamquick and Paul,

basically when i click on the link it aint working, but there is way more than 1024 characters. Can you see anyway round it?

Eg, <"+" indicates "line break added to prevent side scroll">

<a href='javascript:checkItem2("product1", 0, 0, 0,+
document.itemsform.Field1_1.options[document.itemsform.Field1_1.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_2.options[document.itemsform.Field1_2.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_3.options[document.itemsform.Field1_3.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_4.options[document.itemsform.Field1_4.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_5.options[document.itemsform.Field1_5.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_6.options[document.itemsform.Field1_6.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_7.options[document.itemsform.Field1_7.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_8.options[document.itemsform.Field1_8.selectedIndex].text,+
"item1","item2",document.itemsform.Select1.value,document.itemsform.qty1.value);

javascript:checkItem2("product2", 0, 0, 0,+
document.itemsform.Field1_1.options[document.itemsform.Field1_1.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_2.options[document.itemsform.Field1_2.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_3.options[document.itemsform.Field1_3.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_4.options[document.itemsform.Field1_4.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_5.options[document.itemsform.Field1_5.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_6.options[document.itemsform.Field1_6.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_7.options[document.itemsform.Field1_7.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_8.options[document.itemsform.Field1_8.selectedIndex].text,+
"item3","item3",document.itemsform.Select1.value,document.itemsform.qty1.value);

javascript:checkItem2("product3", 0, 0, 0,+
document.itemsform.Field1_1.options[document.itemsform.Field1_1.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_2.options[document.itemsform.Field1_2.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_3.options[document.itemsform.Field1_3.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_4.options[document.itemsform.Field1_4.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_5.options[document.itemsform.Field1_5.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_6.options[document.itemsform.Field1_6.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_7.options[document.itemsform.Field1_7.selectedIndex].text,+
document.itemsform.Field1_8.options[document.itemsform.Field1_8.selectedIndex].text,+
"item4","item5",document.itemsform.Select1.value,document.itemsform.qty1.value);'>blaa blaa</a>

Am i crazy?, and yes this is necessary.

<added>To Clarify: Im not getting "page cannot be displayed" it just aint following it. But if you take out the last part of script bit it wokrs, presumabably cos it brings belwo the max.</added>

[edited by: tedster at 4:37 pm (utc) on May 15, 2003]

[BlobFisk]

Could you include a lot of the recurring form value calls into your script, or create a seperate script function for each link to avoid having to put all of this information in the link tag?

[edit_g]

tinyurl.com? ;)

[g1smd]

Shorter variable names?