Long URLs are trimmed when stored into the database

I hate long URLs, but I've just had to work with a feed URL longer than 255 chars, and I was getting two warnings: user warning: Duplicate entry 'http://www.domain.com/rss.cgi?' for key 1 query: INSERT INTO parser_common_syndication (etag, last_modified, url) VALUES ('', '', 'http://www.domain.com/rss.cgi?a=1&b=2&c=3&{$url_longer_than_255_chars}') in /sites/all/modules/feedapi/parser_common_syndication/parser_common_syndication.module on line 237.

That's why I discovered that the url is trimmed to 255 chars when stored into the {parser_common_syndication} table, because its url field is defined as a varchar(255) field.

Thus, the SELECT query (in the _parser_common_syndication_feedapi_get() function) fails, the $db_result var is empty, the $has_etag var is never set to TRUE, the module will try to run the INSERT INTO query again, resulting in those Duplicate entry warnings, since both $result->headers['ETag'] and $result->headers['Last-Modified'] are empty.

What's the solution to this problem?

Well, RFC 2068 does not specify any maximum URL length.
MS Internet Explorer is known to support up to 2083 chars.
While better browsers can handle also much longer URLs.
("yes, Microsoft's web server accepts longer URLs than Microsoft's web browser" - LOL)

If it's not a problem, I think it would be useful to edit the structure of the table, and set the url field at least to varchar(512), varchar(1024) or varchar(2048).

Greetings, Giovanni

ps. moreover, when both $result->headers['ETag'] and $result->headers['Last-Modified'] are empty, the UPDATE query is uselessly executed.