mod_rewrite strange results from categories

[isd]

hello, i use mod_rewrite for some searches to provide rss output but something is going wrong:
when i search in categories and rewrite url i have diferent result be4 rewriting? how this could happens?
egzample:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^Wanted-URL.xml$ http://www.myweb.com/search/search.cgi?zoom_query=words+im+searchin+for&zoom_p er_page=10&zoom_and=0&zoom_sort=0&zoom_cat%5B%5D=1 &zoom_xml=1 [L]

and normaly here http://myweb.com/Wanted-URL.xml i should have the same results as in the long url but this works only if i do search without categories... and i need to precise some searches be4 rewrite, so what im doing wrong please explain i use this rewrite metod long time and works with everthing... except with categories
any help will be appreciated
thank you very much in advance for your help
ewa

[David]

The Apache web server mod_rewrite module is some what of a black art. The syntax is arcane, the documentation somewhat poor and being open source there is no one to go to when it doesn't work. And it often doesn't work as expected.

So we are pretty hesitant about spending time getting mod_rewrite to work when it isn't our software.

Without doing any testing, my guess would be that the %5B%5D codes have some special regular expression meaning to mod_rewrite, and that you need to escape some of the characters to remove the special meaning. This is just a guess however.

[isd]

thank you very much that was very helpful, i understand you want to west time for something is not a part of the software but "%5B%5D" is produced by zoom and when i rip this off orginal link and also rewrite works like a charm that means this: "_cat%5B%5D=1" and this "_cat=1" are the same for zoom, it seems like special caracters only in part of categories want work with mod_rewrite because i have similar caracters in "/search.cgi?zoom_query=Videos+de+Oca%C3%B1a&zoom_pe r_page=10&zoom_and=1&zoom_sort=0&zoom_cat=6&zoom_x ml=1" and this works ok, any ways, thank you very much for your help i spended long time thinking what happens...
thank you ewa