URLs with circumflex are not handled correctly

Question

I tried linking to Wolfram Alpha today. The request contains ^ and it does not seem to work:

1. Vanilla C&P
   http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=limit+2^%28Sqrt%28n%29%29%2F1.0000000001^n
   It is not even recognised as URL (it was in the comments, though).

2. Escaping ^
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=limit+2\^%28Sqrt%28n%29%29%2F1.0000000001\^n
   Thought Markdown might interfere; no change.

3. Using HTML character code
   http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=limit+2^%28Sqrt%28n%29%29%2F1.0000000001^n
   Works here, but did not in the comments.

4. Using ASCII code
   http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=limit+2%5E%28Sqrt%28n%29%29%2F1.0000000001%5En
   Works both here and in the comments.

5. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=limit+2^%28Sqrt%28n%29%29%2F1.0000000001^n
   <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=limit+2^%28Sqrt%28n%29%29%2F1.0000000001^n>
   Nope. And ugly.

I think we should be able to copy&paste URLs and the engine should take care of the rest.

Why are comments even handled differently than posts?

Answer 1

I'm pretty sure this is status-bydesign: you're supposed to use the standard URL encoding %5e. Likewise, use %2a when an URL contains a *.

Note that ^ is not a valid character in URLs or URIs, per RFC 1738 (§2.2) and RFC 3986 (§2.2, §2.3).