lynx-dev Quick Question on using -dump & -auth

[MR SCOTT FENTON]

Two weeks ago I submitted a "LYNX-DEV QUICK QUESTION ON USING -DUMP -AUTH
TOGETHER" and received a very helpful response.  I write again because, as
logical as the ideas were, the problem remains and is actually starting to
look like a bug that might affect other aspects of lynx.

The original problem was:

> On a Sparc running SunOS 4.1+ I find that I can run from the shell
> command line the following URL using Lynx 2.8.2:
>
> $ lynx -auth=userid:password
> "http://interactive.wsj.com/inap-bin/bb?story_ptr=1&search_string=A AT
> &max=30&page=8&list_entries=3&story_list=BW06/08++2204!
> BW05/10++2197!BW04/05++1772!&time=06/08+17:02"
>
> Looking up 'interactive.wsj.com' first.
>
> But that if I put in the '-dump' command it fails:
>
> $ lynx -dump -auth=userid:password
> "interactive.wsj.com/inap-bin/bb?story_ptr=1&search_string=A AT
> &max=30&page=8&list_entries=3&story_list=BW06/08++2204!
> BW05/10++2197!BW04/05++1772!&time=06/08+17:02"
>
> with the following message:
>
> lynx: Can't access startfile http://
> followed by the rest of the URL.

I took the suggestion to make the path more explicit (i.e., add "http:"), add
"-cookies", and place the "-trace" option in the command line.  The result was
the same.  The trace option issues an enormous volume of output which I could
include, as impenetrable as it seems to me, but the problem seems more
fundamental.  Somehow when you add the "-dump" command to the command, lynx
seems to lose sight of the authentication if it has to bounce around too many
links (i.e., if the URL is one of those long, confusing URLs with "&"s, "?"s,
and/or "!"s).  It works if you do not have complex URLs.

Would anyone have any suggestion how I might pursue this without wasting the
development community's time?  Thanks very much for any insight.

Scott Fenton

P.S. I have put carriage-returns in the URLs above for readability.  Likewise,
I have checked the list archives to see if there were any other discussions of
this problem.