Are spaces in referral code ok?

[deadhippo]

Hi,
In a soon to be released website we have had a simple referral system installed where the username will be tagged on to the end of the url.
eg. mysite.com?refby=user name

User names can include spaces and we have tested it and found that the it works but I was wondering are there any dangers to including spaces in the url.

Thanks

[danlefree]

Ensure that users are provided with the URL-encoded version (" " => "%20"), otherwise automatic link correction on some CMS and forum software will effectively break referral URL's.

Is there a reason you're not using a numeric identifier instead?

[deadhippo]

Thanks for the info. That might be trouble alright. I may remove the ability to have spaces in the names.

No reason for not using a numeric identifier.