Jun 10 2006

URL Escape Characters

Filed under: Markup Languages » HTML,

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What is the % Code in My URL?

In order to prevent the misinterpretation of special characters such as a space, bracket (< and >), or % in the URL (which stands for Uniform Resource Locator - it is the address you see in your browser's address bar indicating the location of the website you are visiting), browsers parse certain special characters using URL escape characters. This explains why when you click on a link such as: domain.com/page one.htm you see it parsed in the address bar as example.com/page%20one.htm. In this case the %20 is the escape character for the space.

Mass find and replace for documents or web pages

Chances are you're looking up the code for a URL escape character because you're a web designer, or at least building and designing your own web site. One of the biggest pains in web design can be the need to update a small piece of content on multiple pages. In this case, if you're needing to update a URL escape character, it will be a pain in the butt to have to open a dozen files individually and make the change. In comes our Find & Replace software. Why pay $100 for Homesite (the only other software that does reliable mass find and replace for HTML or CSS documents), when you can use our Find & Replace software for free (as shareware).

It's powerful and efficient, and compatible with Windows /95 - Vista operating systems. It works with all documents, not just web page files. With it, you can change or update multiple web pages/files at once, including multiple instances of URL escape characters. Whether it's a link, a copyright notice, or simply a spelling mistake - you'll be able to update hundreds of web pages or text documents at once, without having to edit edit each of them manually.

What You See is What You Get (WYSIWYG) HTML Editor

If you'd like to take the hassle out of hand-coding your escape characters, you can use our HTML Editor to make the job easy for you. No technical knowledge required - what you see is what you get. In other words, if you're familiar with using Word Processing software, you should have no problem using our HTML Editor to easily create web documents and web pages. You can even create an entire website of your own from the bottom up - without any programming experience. Click here to learn more.

Common URL Escape Characters

Table of URL Escape Characters
Character	Escape Character	Character	Escape Character
Space	%20	#	%23
$	%24	%	%25
&	%26	@	%40
'	%60	/	%2F
:	%3A	;	%3B
<	%3C	=	%3D
>	%3E	?	%3F
[	%5B	\	%5C
]	%5D	^	%5E
{	%7B	\|	%7C
}	%7D	~	%7E

Good Coding Practice

It is good coding practice to avoid the need for URL escape characters. As a rule of thumb, avoid using the special characters above when formulating a URI string (filename), and I recommend using the hyphen (-) instead of the underscore (_) (as all search engines recognize the hyphen as a space separator, but the same is not true for the underscore; and older browsers do not correctly interpret the underscore in CSS). If you must use the above characters make sure to escape them using the above escape characters so when the browser parses your code it will not misinterpret the link. It's important to note that these URL escape characters differ from HTML escape characters.

Looking for HTML (XHTML) Escape Characters?

Visit our page on HTML Escape Characters for a list of valid HTML (and XHTML) escape characters.

Tools:

regarding artf153300

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Thu, 2010-07-22 02:09.

I have to change the URL. What should I do?

More URL escape characters

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Tue, 2010-06-29 03:36.

This is a great list to get me started, thanks. But I know this can't be all the URL escape characters. Is there any way you could post all of them? I'd be much obliged :)

Adding URL Escape Characters

Submitted by cwd on Wed, 2010-07-07 12:00.

Those are all the URL escape characters you should need. If there's a specific one you're looking for or you notice one that you're missing, please comment and let us know - we'll be happy to add it :)

More than one space

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Thu, 2010-04-01 04:24.

Good Morning,

Wonder if someone has come across the following problem:

We call a legacy embedded browser component with a file location on the hard drive. (The file contains a post request that has been generated by our program)

The file is written to my documents.
D:\Users Documents\User1\My Documents\Req1.html

The browser doesnt like the spaces in the directory.
D:\Users Documents\Req1.html --> Fails
D:\Users%20Documents\Req1.html --> Works

So the spaces should eb escaped but the following fails:
D:\Users%20Documents\User1\My%20Documents\Req1.html

I tested it with other directories as well (custom C:\aa\ and C:\a a\) and the same result. It keeps failing if the file name has more than 1 space. The embedded browser component takes a simple string argument.

I tried adding ' and " around the input but that simply let the browser hangs.

Any ideas on what i can try next?

Thanks,
Steven

%60 is ` not to be confused

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Tue, 2010-02-23 16:15.

%60 is ` not to be confused with %27 '

Comprehensive list of URL chars

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Mon, 2009-06-15 08:31.

Nice - a nice concise table of URL escape characters, just what I was looking for. Now is there any way to get the entire list?

Do URL escape chars matter in Windows?

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Fri, 2009-05-29 13:38.

Great article. Question is - do URL escape characters matter in Windows Explorer? In other words, can I name a folder "Folder Name", or should I name it "Folder-Name"?

Spaces in folder names

Submitted by cwd on Fri, 2009-05-29 15:32.

That's a great question. The answer depends on whether the folders will ever be hosted online. In other words, if someone tries to access the folder or files via a web browser, the spaces will be interpreted as characters. In the Windows environment alone, however, there is no need to replace spaces with hyphens.

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