URL encoder

URL encoder

URL encoding, also known as percent encoding or URI encoding, is a process of converting characters into a format that is safe for inclusion in a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). URLs are used to address resources on the internet, and they consist of various components like the scheme (e.g., "http" or "https"), domain name, path, query parameters, and more.

URLs are designed to work with a limited set of characters that are considered safe and do not interfere with the structure of the URL itself. However, many characters, such as spaces, special characters, and non-ASCII characters, are not allowed in URLs or have special meanings. URL encoding ensures that these characters are properly represented in a URL.

In URL encoding, each character that needs to be encoded is replaced by a percent sign ("%") followed by two hexadecimal digits representing the ASCII code of the character. For example:

• Space (" ") becomes "%20".
• Question mark ("?") becomes "%3F".
• Ampersand ("&") becomes "%26".
• Plus sign ("+") becomes "%2B".
• Non-ASCII characters like accented letters are encoded as their corresponding ASCII codes.

For example, if you have a URL like:https://example.com/search?q=hello world?

The URL encoder would convert space to a "%20" and question mark to "%3F", resulting in the encoded URL: https://example.com/search?q=hello%20world%3F

URL encoding is essential when passing data as query parameters in a URL, as well as when forming URLs dynamically through programming, especially when the data contains characters that have special meanings in URLs. This process ensures that the URL is correctly interpreted by web browsers and web servers, avoiding any issues that might arise from improperly formatted URLs. Many programming languages and libraries provide functions or methods to perform URL encoding and decoding operations.