URL encoding problem
<p>I'm writing my first web application (still!), and have a problem activating user accounts.</p>

<p>The way I've got it set up is that the new user fills out a form with name, email address, and all that. They submit it, and my application sends a link to the email address they provide. They click that link, which passes (by way of a GET) a random code and their email address - activating their account.</p>

<p>In order to do some debugging, I thought I'd try this from different email services. Hotmail works, my own email works, but gmail doesn't. If you click on my 'activate' link in gmail, a 404 Not Found error pops up. So I've narrowed the problem down to how it encodes the link.</p>

<p>Here's the link in gmail (which doesn't work):</p>

<p>mywebsite.com/PHP+App+Files/App1/ln_activate.php?x=userx%40gmail.com&amp;y=9c7b35bbdf1b0d24b0eda62f670c1456</p>

<p>When I change that one to this:</p>

<p>mywebsite.com/PHP%20App%20Files/App1/ln_activate.php?x=userx@gmail.com&amp;y=9c7b35bbdf1b0d24b0eda62f670c1456</p>

<p>... it does work. I can see what the differences are, but why does gmail do that, and does anyone have any suggestions for a workaround?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>
