I am confused about encoded URLs.
For example, when I write my browser:
stackoverflow.com/questions
I can successfully view the page.
However, when I write:
stackoverflow.com%2Fquestions
I am unable to view.
Since %2F means "/", I want to understand why this does not work properly.
The reason why I want to find out is that I am getting an encoded URL and I don't know how I can decode that URL right after I receive it in order not to have an error page.
The /
is one of the percent-encoding reserved characters
. URLs use percent-encoding reserved characters
for defining their syntax. Only when these characters are not used in their special role inside a URL, they need to be encoded.
Percent-encoding reserved characters:
! * ' ( ) ; : @ & = + $ , / ? # [ ]
%21 %2A %27 %28 %29 %3B %3A %40 %26 %3D %2B %24 %2C %2F %3F %23 %5B %5D