URL Encoder

URL encoding (also called percent-encoding) replaces unsafe or special characters in a URL with a percent sign (%) followed by two hexadecimal digits representing the character's ASCII code. For example, a space becomes %20 and an ampersand becomes %26.

Percent encoding is another name for URL encoding. It gets its name from the percent sign (%) used as an escape character. Each encoded character is represented as %HH, where HH is the hexadecimal value of the character.

You should encode URLs whenever they contain special characters like spaces, ampersands, question marks, or non-ASCII characters like unicode. This is essential for query string parameters, form data, and any URL that will be embedded in HTML or passed as a parameter.

Characters that must be encoded include spaces, &, =, ?, #, %, +, and any non-ASCII characters. Reserved characters like /, :, and @ have special meaning in URLs and should only be encoded when used outside their reserved purpose.

encodeURI encodes a full URI but preserves characters that have special meaning in URLs (like :, /, ?, #, &). encodeURIComponent encodes everything except letters, digits, and a few special characters (- _ . ! ~ * ' ( )), making it suitable for encoding individual query parameters.