The | is the new delimiter for Whitelist and Blacklist

For delimiting timestamp and notes in Whitelist and Blacklist entries, ? was used, but this made query string urls problematic. | is used now, while ? is still supported for backwards compatibility.

Author: jjxtra

IPBanCore/Core/IPBan/IPBanFilter.cs

@@ -37,6 +37,26 @@ namespace DigitalRuby.IPBanCore
     /// </summary>
     public class IPBanFilter : IIPBanFilter
     {
+        /// <summary>
+        /// Delimiter for each item in a filter string
+        /// </summary>
+        public const char ItemDelimiter = ',';
+
+        /// <summary>
+        /// Item pieces delimiters including the legacy ? and the current |
+        /// </summary>
+        public static readonly char[] ItemPiecesDelimitersLegacy = ['?', '|'];
+
+        /// <summary>
+        /// Item pieces delimiter |
+        /// </summary>
+        public const char ItemPiecesDelimiter = '|';
+
+        /// <summary>
+        /// Used if multiple ips in one entry (rare)
+        /// </summary>
+        public const char SubEntryDelimiter = ';';
+
         private static readonly HashSet<string> ignoreListEntries =
         [
             "0.0.0.0",
@@ -123,18 +143,19 @@ public IPBanFilter(string value, string regexValue, IHttpRequestMaker httpReques
                 List<string> entries = [];
 
                 // primary entries (entry?timestamp?notes) are delimited by comma
-                foreach (string entry in value.Split(',', StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries | StringSplitOptions.TrimEntries))
+                // | can be used as a sub delimiter instead of ? mark
+                foreach (string entry in value.Split(ItemDelimiter, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries | StringSplitOptions.TrimEntries))
                 {
                     string entryWithoutComment = entry;
-                    int pos = entryWithoutComment.IndexOf('?');
+                    int pos = entryWithoutComment.IndexOfAny(ItemPiecesDelimitersLegacy);
                     if (pos >= 0)
                     {
                         entryWithoutComment = entryWithoutComment[..pos];
                     }
                     entryWithoutComment = entryWithoutComment.Trim();
 
                     // sub entries (multiple ip addresses) are delimited by semi-colon
-                    foreach (string subEntry in entryWithoutComment.Split(';', StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries | StringSplitOptions.TrimEntries))
+                    foreach (string subEntry in entryWithoutComment.Split(SubEntryDelimiter, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries | StringSplitOptions.TrimEntries))
                     {
                         entries.Add(subEntry);
                     }

IPBanCore/ipban.config

@@ -1007,7 +1007,7 @@
 		<!--
 			Comma separated list of ip addresses, cidr masks, urls or dns names that are never banned. Whitelist takes precedence over blacklist.
 			If you use a url, the response should be text and newline delimited, example: https://uptimerobot.com/inc/files/ips/IPv4andIPv6.txt.
-			For urls, ? char is not allowed, so if you need a query string, you must create a non ? url and have it 302 redirect to the new url with a ? in it.
+			For urls, | char is not allowed. If you need a url with this char, create a redirect without the |
 			Ips in this list are added to a whitelist firewall rule and will always be allowed.
 		-->
 		<add key="Whitelist" value=""/>
@@ -1021,8 +1021,7 @@
 		<add key="WhitelistRegex" value=""/>
 
 		<!--
-			Comma separated list of ip addresses, cidr masks, urls or dns names or user names to always ban and never unban
-			For urls, ? char is not allowed, so if you need a query string, you must create a non ? url and have it 302 redirect to the new url with a ? in it.
+			Same format as Whitelist, but for entries that are always banned. Whitelist takes precedence over blacklist.
 		-->
 		<add key="Blacklist" value=""/>