HTML URL Encoding

In this post we’ll discuss about HTML URL Encoding. Web browsers request pages from web servers by using a URL i.e., Uniform Resource Locator.

URL Encoding

Following are the key points of HTML encoding.

• URL encoding changes characters into a layout that can be sent over the web.
• URLs can solely be transmitted over the web using the ASCII character-set.
• As URLs frequently include characters beyond the ASCII set, the URL must be transformed into an appropriate ASCII format.
• URL encoding substitutes hazardous ASCII characters with a “%” followed by two hexadecimal digits.

HTML URL Encoding Functions in Different languages.

• In JavaScript you can use encodeURIComponent() function.
• In ASP has the Server.URLEncode() function.
• In PHP we have rawurlencode() function.
• In C# we have HttpUtility.UrlEncode(URL) function.

Let’s check one sample code in C#, HTML URL encoding

You should only encode the username or any other part of the URL that may be invalid. Encoding the entire URL can cause issues and will not open that URL. You should encode ONLY the value of the key/value pair in the query string not the URL itself, like this:

string url = "http://www.google.com/search?q=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(" C# Example");

Alternately you can also use Extension method of string as given in below sample code.

public static void Main()
{
    string actualUrl = "https://codeconfig.in/text?var=#val&another=#two";
   // In C# Extension Method of String is "UrlEncode()"
    var outputURL = actualUrl.UrlEncode();
    Console.WriteLine(outputURL);
}

ASCII Encoding List

Your browser will encode input, according to the character-set used in your page. The default character-set in HTML5 is UTF-8.

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