How should I redirect users in a formmail script? - perl

Question

So I'm using a basic formmail script. Within the script I'm using a redirect variable. The value of the redirect is something like:
http://www.mysite.com/NewOLS_GCUK_EN/bling.aspx?BC=GCUK&IBC=CSEE&SIBC=CSEE
When the redirect action happens however, the URL appears in the browser as:
http://www.mysite.com/NewOLS_GCUK_EN/bling.aspx?BC=GCUK&IBC=CSEE&SIBC=CSEE
You can see the & characters are replaced with &
Is there any way to fix this?

Answer 1

Maybe you can edit the script with a string substitution:
$myRedirectURL =~ s/\&/\&/g;
Or perhaps look in the script where the opposite substitution is taking place, and comment out that step.

Answer 2

HTML::Entities's decode_entities could decode this for you:
$redirect_target = decode_entities($redirect_target);
But passing the destination URL as HTTP argument (e.g. hidden form field) is dangerous (as #Sinan Ünür already said in the comments). Better store the target URL within your script and pass a selector from the form:
if ($selector eq 'home') { $target_url = 'http://www.foo.bar/'; }
elsif ($selector eq 'bling') { $target_url = 'http://www.foo.bar/NewOLS_GCUK_EN/bling.aspx'; }
else {
$target_url = 'http://www.foo.bar/default.html'; # Fallback/default value
}
Using a Hash would be shorter:
my %targets = {
home => 'http://www.foo.bar/',
bling => '/NewOLS_GCUK_EN/bling.aspx',
};
$target_url = $targets{$selector} || '/default_feedback_thanks.html';