--- loncom/interface/coursecatalog.pm	2006/10/18 13:52:17	1.9
+++ loncom/interface/coursecatalog.pm	2006/12/05 02:55:51	1.11
@@ -47,8 +47,7 @@ sub handler {
     my $lonidsdir=$r->dir_config('lonIDsDir');
     my $handle;
     if ($lonid) {
-        $handle=$lonid->value;
-        $handle=~s/\W//g;
+	my $handle=&LONCAPA::clean_handle($lonid->value);
     }
     if ((-e "$lonidsdir/$handle.id") && ($handle ne '')) {
         &Apache::lonnet::transfer_profile_to_env($lonidsdir,$handle);
@@ -456,6 +455,7 @@ sub build_courseinfo_hash {
         }
         my $cleandesc=&HTML::Entities::encode($descr,'<>&"');
         $cleandesc=~s/'/\\'/g;
+        $cleandesc =~ s/^\s+//;
         my ($cdom,$cnum)=split(/\_/,$course);
 
         my ($desc,$instcode,$owner,$ttype) = split(/:/,$courses{$course});