Server URL Encoding Property

The following server property has been added in Version 3.5 of the SilverStream Application Server:

  http-server.com.sssw.srv.international.UrlEncoding 

The SilverStream server uses this property when URL-encoding and decoding form content.

By default, the SilverStream server uses utf-8 (Universal Character Set Transfer Format) for URL encoding and decoding. Although browsers will eventually encode all data in utf-8, there is currently no encoding standard. Because utf-8 can encode ASCII characters without requiring modification, utf-8 works well for English and most western languages. Because languages using multibyte encodings are not a subset of utf-8, character encoding and decoding will not work properly with them.

When to change the encoding scheme

You typically need to change the encoding scheme only when the majority of client browsers in your environment use character encodings that are not ISO 8859-1 (Latin 1). For example, a Japanese Web site that serves content to its employees using the ShiftJIS encoding may want to change its SilverStream server's encoding property to SJIS.

To change the encoding scheme:

1. To change from the default utf-8 to another encoding, add the following line to the httpd.props file (located in the resources directory beneath the SilverStream root directory).

     http-server.com.sssw.srv.international.UrlEncoding=NewEncoding  
   

2. Enter the language mapping needed at your site in place of the NewEncoding variable. Check the Sun Web site if you are unsure about the Java string mapping for your language.

3. Restart the SilverStream server.

   URL content will be encoded using the new encoding scheme after you restart the server.