Question 1

What is URL encoding?

Accepted Answer

URL encoding (also called percent-encoding) converts unsafe characters in a URL into a % followed by two hexadecimal digits. For example, a space becomes %20 and the Chinese characters for 'hello' become %E4%BD%A0%E5%A5%BD. This ensures URLs only contain ASCII-safe characters.

Question 2

What is the difference between encodeURI and encodeURIComponent?

Accepted Answer

encodeURI encodes a full URL and does not encode reserved characters such as ://, ?, &, =. It is suitable for encoding an entire URL address. encodeURIComponent encodes all non-alphanumeric characters including reserved characters, making it suitable for encoding query parameter values.

Question 3

Why do Chinese characters need to be URL-encoded?

Accepted Answer

The URL standard only allows the ASCII character set (letters, numbers, and certain symbols). Chinese characters are Unicode and outside the ASCII range. Placing them directly in a URL may cause parsing errors or display issues. URL encoding converts them to ASCII-compatible %XX format.

Question 4

Is URL encoding safe for sensitive data?

Accepted Answer

This URL encoding tool runs entirely in your browser. No input data is sent to any server. All encoding and decoding operations are performed locally, ensuring no data leakage risk.

URL Encoder/Decoder

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