Data Strings

The data string holds address information. The first part of a data string consists of a series of keyname= value elements separated by semicolons (;). You can include optional user data by putting a number sign (#) after the last value, followed by an application-defined string.

The key name is a lowercase string that identifies the data and implicitly indicates what type of data is contained in the value. For instance, the "provider" key name indicates that the value contains a Microsoft?DirectPlay?service provider globally unique identifier (GUID), in the form of a GUID string. The following characters are reserved and should not be used in value strings.

The first element in the data string must be the provider. Other elements can follow in any order. A generic URL looks something like this.

x-directplay:/provider=Provider_GUID;[keyname1=value1];[keyname2=value2][...]#[user defined string]

The Provider_GUID should be of the form

{EBFE7BA0-628D-11D2-AE0F-006097B01411}

but using the escape characters for the invalid characters as shown in the following example.

%7BEBFE7BA0-628D-11D2-AE0F-006097B01411%7D