UFFI/TFFI call for WebBrowser with specific URL length adds strange characters to the URL

[astares]

Bug description
Given a URL with a specific length to open in WebBrowser on Windows adds strange characters to the URL

To Reproduce

• use Pharo 11 or 12 on Windows
• Open Playground and run

WebBrowser openOn: 'https://pharo.org?abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890ok'.

you will see that strange characters added to the URL location in the webbrowser like

[https://pharo.org?abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890ok](https://pharo.org/?aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa%C5%92()

Expected behavior
Expect the URL to stay the same as given and to correctly open on the web browser

Screenshots

Version information:

• OS: Windows 10
• Pharo Version 11 and 12, probably others too

Additional context

• seems to be less a problem of URL content but more a problem of specific URL length. if you use other lenth it works

Using that URL in DOS just opens the correct location

Might possibly be an issue of UFFI/TFFI

[VincentBlondeau]

The issue is in the FFI call. The WBWindowsWebBrowser is doing a call with String* which doesn't make sense in this context since it is not made to be written on.
A simple fix would be:

PR incoming.

See doc on FFI for reference:
https://files.pharo.org/books-pdfs/booklet-uFFI/UFFIDRAFT.pdf

[astares]

But in Pharo 8 this was working using the String* definition.

Maybe there was a change between the newer TFFI in P12 and (back then) the UFFI in P8.

[astares]

@demarey
A full fix is provided as a PR in #16262

Because as now UFFI seems to be more strict it is required to also have a type definiton for the first parameter (constant 0)

shellExecute: lpOperation file: lpFile parameters: lpParameters directory: lpDirectory show: nShowCmd

	^ self ffiCall: #(
			FFIConstantHandle ShellExecuteA(
     				int 0, "Operation is not associated with a window"
     				String lpOperation,
         			String lpFile,
     				String lpParameters,
     				String lpDirectory,
        			int nShowCmd)) module: #shell32