HTML URL EncodingReference Manual

URL encoding converts characters into a format that can be transmitted over the Internet.

URL - Uniform Resource Locator

Web browsers request pages from web servers using a URL.

A URL is the address of a webpage, such as:https://www.example.com。

URL Encoding

URLs can only usethe ASCII character setto be sent over the Internet.

Since URLs often contain characters outside the ASCII set, URLs must be converted into valid ASCII format.

URL encoding uses "%" followed by two hexadecimal digits to replace non-ASCII characters.

URLs cannot contain spaces. URL encoding usually replaces spaces with +.

Try it Yourself

If you click the "Submit" button below, the browser will URL-encode the input before sending it. The page on the server will display the received input.

Try entering some other characters and click the submit button again.

URL Encoding Functions

JavaScript, PHP, and ASP all provide functions for URL-encoding strings.

JavaScript uses the encodeURI() function, PHP uses the rawurlencode() function, and ASP uses the Server.URLEncode() function.

Click the "URL Encoding" button to see how the JavaScript function encodes text.

Note:The JavaScript function encodes spaces as %20.

URL Encoding Reference Manual

URL Encoding Reference Manual

ASCII device control characters were originally designed to control hardware devices such as printers and tape drives. These characters serve no purpose in URLs.