Short; -)
The problem is that each web server and each browser have their own ideas about how long this is maximum. The RFC for HTTP does not provide the maximum length. IE restricts access to 2083 characters, the path itself can be no more than 2048 characters. However, this limit is not universal. Firefox claims to support at least 65,536, but some people have confirmed that even some 100,000 characters work on some platforms. Safari exceeds 80,000 (verified). Apache, on the other hand, has a limit of 4000. Microsoft Internet Information Server has one of them 16384 (but it is configurable).
My recommendation is to stay below 2,000 characters anyway. This is not guaranteed to work with every browser in the world (especially not the older one), but it will work with all modern browsers. Further, I recommend using POST wherever possible (for example, to avoid using GET for FORM submits), if some users want to simulate sending FORM via GET, make sure your application supports the desired parameters either through POST or through GET, but when you send the page yourself via a button or JS, prefer POST via GET).
Mecki
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