Indicating whether to encode inserted attribute values

When you insert an attribute value as a URL parameter, you can specify whether Studio encodes the value before inserting it into the URL.

URLs must use ASCII characters, and must avoid using certain reserved characters used as part of the URL syntax. URL encoding replaces any non-conforming characters with a percent sign followed by a hexadecimal numeric representation of the character.

For example, the forward slash (/) is a reserved character. If a URL includes the phrase "CD/DVD", then URL encoding would change that to "CD%2FDVD".

When inserting attribute values into a URL, to have Studio encode the inserted value, use the following format:

${attribute}

For example:

http://www.acme.com/index.htm?p1=${Attribute_1}&p2=${Attribute_2}

To not encode the value, use a double set of braces:

${{attribute}}

For example:

http://www.acme.com/index.htm?p1=${{Attribute_1}}&p2=${{Attribute_2}}

It is important to understand that avoiding encoding can pose a security risk, because data retrieved from the underlying Endeca Server is rendered in the user’s browser without intervention, potentially allowing scripts or HTML to be injected directly into a user’s browser.

Similarly, if the attribute contains reserved characters that are disallowed in a URL, the resulting hyperlink may be invalid or incorrect and therefore not work for the end user.

As a result, using the non-encoding syntax is not recommended. Unless you know that the underlying data is already encoded, you should always use the encoding syntax.