FIX: Fragment Identifiers Ignored for Links on UTF-8 pages

ID: Q182501


The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) versions 4.0, 4.01


SYMPTOMS

Hyperlinks that use fragment identifiers ("#fragment") on the URL to identify a specific location in the target resource will fail in Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, 4.01 (4.0x) for UTF-8 pages, sometimes with the following error message:

Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site <garbage>.
Make sure the address is correct and try again."


CAUSE

Internet Explorer 4.0x parses URLs with embedded "#" symbols incorrectly for the UTF-8 code page.


RESOLUTION

The only available workaround at this time is to use an alternative character set (charset).


STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a bug in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. This bug was corrected in Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.


MORE INFORMATION

The following HTML demonstrates the problem:


<HTML>
<HEAD>
  <META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
  <TITLE>Repro of UTF-8 Fragment Failure Bug</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
  <A HREF="#subloc1">Jump down</A>
  <!-- ... bunch of BR's ... -->
  <A NAME=subloc1>Many lines down</A>
</BODY>
</HTML> 
Activating the hyperlink in this document generates the symptoms described in this article--nothing happens or an error message box is shown. With the correct behavior, Internet Explorer should scroll the document down to the sub-location within the document.

In Internet Explorer 4.0x, a page can be specified as UTF-8 in multiple ways such as the following:
  • With a META tag in the HTML document (as demonstrated above)


  • Via HTTP Content-Type header added by CGI EXE or ISAPI DLL


  • By specifying a default charset in the Internet Explorer Fonts Dialog


All methods result in the bug described in this article.


REFERENCES

HTML 4.0 RFC 1866, subsection 7.4:

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/links.html#h-12.1.1

© Microsoft Corporation 1999, All Rights Reserved.
Contributions by Jason Strayer, Microsoft Corporation

Additional query words: hash bookmark #

Keywords : kberrmsg kbIE500fix
Version :
Platform :
Issue type : kbbug


Last Reviewed: December 4, 1999
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