URLEncode

Type

function

Summary

Returns a string that has been transformed so that it can be posted to an HTTP server as a URL.

Syntax

the URLEncode of <formString>

URLEncode(<formString>)

Description

Use the URLEncode function to encode a URL so it can be safely posted to an HTTP server.

Letters and numbers (alphanumeric characters) are not transformed by the URLEncode function. The representation used for non-alphanumeric characters is a percent sign followed by two hexadecimal digits. For example, the ASCII value of the character ~ is 126; the hexadecimal equivalent of 126 is 7E. So wherever the character ~ appears in the formString, it is converted to "%7E".

note

The URLEncode function does not conform to RFC3986. In order to produce a string that does conform to it, you would first encode the string to UTF-8 and then after performing URLEncode, replace all instances of "+" with "%20". For example:

    function urlEncodeRFC pString
        if pString is strictly a string then
            put textEncode(pString,\"UTF-8\") into pString
        end if
        put URLEncode(pString) into pString
        replace \"+\" with \"%20\" in pString
        return pString
    end urlEncodeRFC

note

Non-ASCII characters, such as Unicode, that appear in the string to be encoded must first be encoded as UTF-8 (as per standard convention), requiring the use of the textEncode function. The code example given above can perform this task.

Parameters

Name	Type	Description
formString	string

Examples

URLEncode("ABC123") -- returns "ABC123"

URLEncode("Test string $$") -- returns "Test+string+%24%24"

local tGoodURL
put "http://www.example.net/" & URLEncode("A File Name with spaces.html") into tGoodURL

Related

glossary: function, hexadecimal, encode, ASCII, return, server

keyword: URL, character, http, string

command: post

control structure: function

function: textEncode

Compatibility and Support

Introduced

LiveCode 1.0

OS

mac

windows

linux

ios

android

Platforms

desktop

server

mobile