The following considerations apply to URLs in management API requests.
URL length
The portion of a URL that follows mapi, excluding any appended query parameters, is limited to 4,095 bytes. If a request includes a URL that violates that limit, HCP returns a status code of 414 (Request URI Too Large).
Percent-encoding for special characters
Some characters have special meaning when used in a URL and may be interpreted incorrectly when used for other purposes. To avoid ambiguity, percent-encode the special characters listed in the table below.
Percent-encoded values are not case sensitive.
| Character | Percent-encoded values |
|---|---|
| Space | %20 |
| Tab | %09 |
| New line | %0A |
| Carriage return | %0D |
| + | %2B |
| % | %25 |
| # | %23 |
| ? | %3F |
| & | %26 |
| \ | &5C |
Quotation marks with URLs in command lines
When using the HCP management API, you work in a Windows, Unix, or Mac OS X shell. Some characters in the commands you enter may have special meaning to the shell. For example, the ampersand (&) used in URLs to join multiple query parameters may indicate that a process should be put in the background.
To avoid the possibility of the Windows, Unix, or Mac OS X shell misinterpreting special characters in a URL, always enclose the entire URL in double quotation marks.