0

I'm using the Gravatar helper class from Microsoft.Web.Helpers like so

<%: Gravatar.GetHtml("me@domain.com", 80, "identicon") %>

which produces in the source

<img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/0ff2e377be7d73b15f0b48022a755717?s=80&amp;d=identicon" alt="gravatar" />

The image URL does work but shouldn't it be &d=identicon and not &amp;d=identicon? It appears to have encoded the ampersand. This is also the same when using Gravatar.GetUrl()

How can I stop it encoding the ampersand without rewriting my own version?

David Glenn
  • 24,412
  • 19
  • 74
  • 94

2 Answers2

3
<%:Gravatar.GetHtml("me@domain.com", 80, "identicon") %>

Your telling it to encode the output, ":" is short hand for this. If you do not want to encode the output, do this

<%=Gravatar.GetHtml("me@domain.com", 80, "identicon") %>

As far as I am aware ":" is shorthand for outputting via Html.Encode()

=========Edit

What the Helper is doing is correct, it should be encoding the ampersand, more info at the link below

XHTML and & (Ampersand) encoding

Community
  • 1
  • 1
LiamB
  • 18,243
  • 19
  • 75
  • 116
  • Gravatar.GetHtml() returns a HtmlString that has already been encoded. <%= and <%: produces the same result. – David Glenn Nov 22 '10 at 09:53
  • Right, thinking about this. It's correct! & should be there, else the page is invalid html (Run it through the validator). The URL works, so im not quite sure that there is an issue here. Why would you want to stop it encoding? – LiamB Nov 22 '10 at 10:27
  • The code works and I'm using it but I wanted to learn more about why it is doing it and if it's the correct method, which it appears to be. Viewing in Firebug shows the correct unencoded URL. I need to read more in the HTML spec. Thanks. – David Glenn Nov 22 '10 at 11:24
  • @David Glenn, Good stuff, that link should explain all! – LiamB Nov 22 '10 at 16:00
0

In code (say in the controller action... and not in the *.aspx or *.cshtml markup), when I do this:

var avatarUrl = Gravatar.GetUrl("someone@somewhere.com", defaultImage: "identicon");

This will return the following string:

http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/923d10bc97028030e8e67e7db62658d1?s=80&amp;d=identicon

Note the encoded ampersand (&amp;) where there shouldn't be any encoding. I think this is not working as intended. The reason it matters, is because instead of getting the identicon (or gravatar) that we want, we get the default gravatar logo, which we dont want (the whole point of the identicon fallback). Remember, this was done from the controller, vice the view markup.

Lee DeLapp
  • 1