URLEncoder not able to translate space character

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?

Solution 1:

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"));

Solution 2:

A space is encoded to %20 in URLs, and to + in forms submitted data (content type application/x-www-form-urlencoded). You need the former.

Using Guava:

dependencies {
     compile 'com.google.guava:guava:23.0'
     // or, for Android:
     compile 'com.google.guava:guava:23.0-android'
}

You can use UrlEscapers:

String encodedString = UrlEscapers.urlFragmentEscaper().escape(inputString);

Don't use String.replace, this would only encode the space. Use a library instead.

Solution 3:

This class perform application/x-www-form-urlencoded-type encoding rather than percent encoding, therefore replacing with + is a correct behaviour.

From javadoc:

When encoding a String, the following rules apply:

• The alphanumeric characters "a" through "z", "A" through "Z" and "0" through "9" remain the same.
• The special characters ".", "-", "*", and "_" remain the same.
• The space character " " is converted into a plus sign "+".
• All other characters are unsafe and are first converted into one or more bytes using some encoding scheme. Then each byte is represented by the 3-character string "%xy", where xy is the two-digit hexadecimal representation of the byte. The recommended encoding scheme to use is UTF-8. However, for compatibility reasons, if an encoding is not specified, then the default encoding of the platform is used.

Solution 4:

Encode Query params

org.apache.commons.httpclient.util.URIUtil
    URIUtil.encodeQuery(input);

OR if you want to escape chars within URI

public static String escapeURIPathParam(String input) {
  StringBuilder resultStr = new StringBuilder();
  for (char ch : input.toCharArray()) {
   if (isUnsafe(ch)) {
    resultStr.append('%');
    resultStr.append(toHex(ch / 16));
    resultStr.append(toHex(ch % 16));
   } else{
    resultStr.append(ch);
   }
  }
  return resultStr.toString();
 }

 private static char toHex(int ch) {
  return (char) (ch < 10 ? '0' + ch : 'A' + ch - 10);
 }

 private static boolean isUnsafe(char ch) {
  if (ch > 128 || ch < 0)
   return true;
  return " %$&+,/:;=?@<>#%".indexOf(ch) >= 0;
 }