URLEncoder not able to translate space character

java url urlencode
Cheok Yan Cheng picture Cheok Yan Cheng · Jan 19, 2011 · Viewed 180.3k times · Source

I am expecting

System.out.println(java.net.URLEncoder.encode("Hello World", "UTF-8"));

to output:

Hello%20World

(20 is ASCII Hex code for space)

However, what I get is:

Hello+World

Am I using the wrong method? What is the correct method I should be using?

Answer

dogbane picture dogbane · Jan 19, 2011

This behaves as expected. The URLEncoder implements the HTML Specifications for how to encode URLs in HTML forms.

From the javadocs:

This class contains static methods for converting a String to the application/x-www-form-urlencoded MIME format.

and from the HTML Specification:

application/x-www-form-urlencoded

Forms submitted with this content type must be encoded as follows:

  1. Control names and values are escaped. Space characters are replaced by `+'

You will have to replace it, e.g.:

System.out.println(java.net.URLEncoder.encode("Hello World", "UTF-8").replace("+", "%20"));

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