[tex-k] A bug? Maybe just a terrible inconvenience to work around...

[Robin Fairbairns]

> Oops!  Forgot that % is the comment character.  Oh boy.
> 
> Can't the URL macro "fix" that for its argument, though, by
> making the % normal, then running the real URL macro which does
> whatever it does, and then doing an endgroup to restore the %?

the \url macro of both hyperref and url packages does indeed "fix" the
catcode of %

> But this may be more confusing than just forcing the user to
> do whatever he must do.
> 
> In any case, % characters are all over the place in URLs so we
> have to make sure they are handled properly anyway, I think.

we (the latex community, that is heiko and donald) provide macros for
this job.  i expect there are parallel things in eplain, but the op
was using latex.

the op decided to do the hair shirt thing and use the pdftex
primitives instead.  there's nothing more the community can do for
such people, imo ... except point out to them how to code this stuff
without benefit of the packages.