URL Encoder / Decoder

  1. Encoders - Cryptography
  2. URL Encoder - Decoder

Encodes or decodes a string so that it conforms to the the Uniform Resource Locators Specification - URL (RFC 1738).

If you want to learn more about url encoding, jump to the Url Encoding Explained section of this page.

Url Encoding Explained

Why do I need URL encoding?

The URL specification RFC 1738 specifies that only a small set of characters can be used in a URL. Those characters are:

  • A to Z (ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ)
  • a to z (abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz)
  • 0 to 9 (0123456789)
  • $ (Dollar Sign)
  • - (Hyphen / Dash)
  • _ (Underscore)
  • . (Period)
  • + (Plus sign)
  • ! (Exclamation / Bang)
  • * (Asterisk / Star)
  • ' (Single Quote)
  • ( (Open Bracket)
  • ) (Closing Bracket)

How does URL encoding work?

All offending characters are replaced by a % and a two digit hexadecimal value that represents the character in the proper ISO character set. Here are a couple of examples:

  • $ (Dollar Sign) becomes %24
  • & (Ampersand) becomes %26
  • + (Plus) becomes %2B
  • , (Comma) becomes %2C
  • : (Colon) becomes %3A
  • ; (Semi-Colon) becomes %3B
  • = (Equals) becomes %3D
  • ? (Question Mark) becomes %3F
  • @ (Commercial A / At) becomes %40