Bug#312605: percent sign in debian package names

[Holger Klawitter <info@klawitter.de>]

Package: apt
Package: general package management
Version: up to 0.5.28.5

Hi there,

I tried to put a collection of debian packages on a tomcat webserver along 
with a Packages.gz for easy retrieval via apt-get. However the retrieval does 
not work whenever a percent sign is part of the filename (and the follwing 
two characters indicate a valid hex number) as tomcat interprets the escape 
sequence and retrieves the wrong file name.
 http://oberon/apt/./g++_4%3a3.3.5-3_i386.deb
becomes:
 http://oberon/apt/./g++_4:3.3.5-3_i386.deb

According to rfc1630 percent signs are reserved for quoting and hence 
forbidden as (literal) part of a URI. So tomcat is doing nothing wrong.

Most other webservers do the percent expansion only in the query part of a URL 
so this problem does not occur there. Tweaking apt-get to send properly 
quoted URLs would break on other servers. Not desirable :-)

So I'd suggest to avoid the percent sign as part of a package file name.

-- 
Mit freundlichem Gruß / With kind regards
	Holger Klawitter
--
info@klawitter.de