URL decode issue

Hi

I was doing something similar and this is how I got around the issue using drupals url function.
Its api is at http://api.drupal.org/api/function/url/6

I wanted a basic query string sent in the url that looks like: http://localhost/drupal/user/reply?cid=8
but it was getting converted into :
http://localhost/drupal/user/reply/%253Fcid%253D8
which was causing problems on the target page for reading from the url.

So I just used the following code based on drupals url api to create the url with the query string attached:

$cid = // this value came from my database...

$options = array( 'query' => 'cid='.$cid ); // this $options array and its use is explained in the drupal url api above

$url_encoded = url( 'http://localhost/drupal/user/reply', $options );

and it worked fine on the other side when I went to retrieve the 'cid' value from the url with:
$cid = $_GET['cid'];

Hope that helps

Richard