URL Decoder/Encoder

What is a URL encode/decoder?

A URL encode/decoder is a tool or functionality used in web development and data transmission over the internet to ensure the integrity and security of URL (Uniform Resource Locator) data. URLs are used to identify and access resources on the web, but they have certain restrictions on the characters that can be safely used. URL encoding and decoding are processes that convert characters into a format that can be transmitted over the Internet without causing issues or misinterpretation by web browsers and servers.

URL Encoding (Percent-Encoding)

What it does: Converts characters into a format that can be transmitted over the Internet. It replaces unsafe ASCII characters with a "%" followed by two hexadecimal digits representing the ASCII code of the character. Spaces are replaced by "+", or "%20" in some contexts.

‍Why it's necessary: URLs can only be sent over the Internet using the ASCII character-set. Since URLs often contain characters outside the ASCII set, those characters need to be converted into a valid ASCII format. Additionally, certain characters have special meanings in URLs (like the "?" and "#" characters) and must be encoded when they represent data.

‍Example: In the URL https://example.com/search?q=hello world, the space between "hello" and "world" needs to be encoded, resulting in https://example.com/search?q=hello%20world

URL Decoding

What it does: Reverses the URL encoding process, converting the percent-encoded characters back to their original form. This is necessary for the receiving end to correctly interpret the data.

‍Why it's necessary: When the server receives the encoded URL, it decodes it to retrieve the original data. This process ensures that data transmitted via URLs arrives intact and is correctly understood by the server.

‍Example: The encoded URL https://example.com/search?q=hello%20world would be decoded back to https://example.com/search?q=hello world.