A blank in the URI works in production but fails in development

Question

I have the following code which works in production:

 redirect_to "/mycontroller/index.html#&panel1-2?error=Invalid Member ID and/or Date of Birth"

In development(using Webrick), I am getting the following error message:

ERROR URI::InvalidURIError: bad URI(is not URI?): http://localhost:3000/mycontroller/index.html#&panel1-2?error=Invalid Member ID and/or Date of Birth

But if I copy and paste the supposedly bad URI in my browser address bar, it works!

I have tried various combinations of the error message text, and the spaces between words is causing it. I can make it work by using URI.escape or some other technique to escape the spaces, but then I would have to change hundreds of such occurrences in code which is working fine.

Thanks for taking the time to help.

Answer 1

As shown below, your URI is actually invalid. You can't have unescaped spaces in your URI.

1.9.3p194 :001 > require 'URI'                                                                                                                             => true
1.9.3p194 :002 > URI.parse('http://localhost:3000/mycontroller/index.html#&panel1-2?error=Invalid Member ID and/or Date of Birth')
URI::InvalidURIError: bad URI(is not URI?): http://localhost:3000/mycontroller/index.html#&panel1-2?error=Invalid Member ID and/or Date of Birth
    from /Users/ccashwell/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p194/lib/ruby/1.9.1/uri/common.rb:176:in `split'
    from /Users/ccashwell/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p194/lib/ruby/1.9.1/uri/common.rb:211:in `parse'
    from /Users/ccashwell/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p194/lib/ruby/1.9.1/uri/common.rb:747:in `parse'
    from (irb):2
    from /Users/ccashwell/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p194/bin/irb:16:in `<main>'

You should escape the URI:

1.9.3p194 :003 > URI.escape('http://localhost:3000/mycontroller/index.html#&panel1-2?error=Invalid Member ID and/or Date of Birth')
 => "http://localhost:3000/mycontroller/index.html%23&panel1-2?error=Invalid%20Member%20ID%20and/or%20Date%20of%20Birth"

Then you can redirect_to the escaped URI:

redirect_to URI.escape('http://localhost:3000/mycontroller/index.html#&panel1-2?error=Invalid Member ID and/or Date of Birth')

Answer 2

Spaces are usually replaced with %20 for urls. Most web browsers will automatically replace this for you, so this explains why the browser can go to the site. Just use %20 in place of your spaces and you should be all set.