ISINDEX
The ISINDEX element indicates that the user agent should provide a
single line text input field for entering a query string.
There are no restrictions on the number of characters that can be
entered.
You use the PROMPT attribute to change the default
prompt supplied by the browser,
e.g.
<ISINDEX HREF="phone.db" PROMPT="Enter Surname:">
<ISINDEX PROMPT="Search Phrase">
Keywords for searching will be passed
from the browser to the server by suffixing, to the URL,
a question mark followed by a list of keywords, separated
by plus signs.
The ISINDEX element is usually generated automatically by
a server-side script. Recall
that it is the server that does the searching, so it
is sensible that the server includes this element for
situations asking for search information.
The URL used for processing queries can be overridden with
the HREF attribute.
The semantics for ISINDEX are currently well defined only when the
base URL for the enclosing document is an HTTP URL.
Typically, when the user presses the enter (return) key,
the query string is sent to the
server identified by the base URL for this document.
For example, if the
query string entered is "HTML and CGI" and the base URL is:
http://WWW.Stars.com/Search/WDVL/test.cgi
then the query generated is:
http://WWW.Stars.com/Search/WDVL/test.cgi?HTML+and+CGI
Note that space characters are mapped to "+" characters and that
normal URL character escaping mechanisms apply. For further details see
the HTTP specification.
Note in practice, the query string is resticted to Latin-1
as there is no current mechanism for the URL to specify a character
set for the query.
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