I need to input list of URLs and afterwards to be able to split/explode it into array. The input goes through textarea or text file.
I was using "," comma symbol at first, but then found out that it is used in some URLs. Now I am using ";" semicolon symbol. I did not encounter any URLs with ";" semicolon yet, but I have read that sometimes ";" is used in URLs.
What symbol would you use to separate URLs? I need it to be as simple and intuitive as possible, because my users are not very experienced in IT.
MY ANSWER: i chose to use new line (" ", "ENTER") as a seperator - it is simple and intuitive to use and is not present in URLs
Have a look at the RFC 1738 specification
Taken from it:
Thus, only alphanumerics, the special characters "$-_.+!*'(),", and reserved characters used for their reserved purposes may be used unencoded within a URL.
Use any character which isn't specified as a valid unencoded character in a URL.
How about the caret (^) symbol. It's not allowed for an unencoded URL.
The specification (RFC 3986) has the answer: http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/rfc3986.html#delimiting.
And no, ";" can appear in a URI.