Convert characters into a format that can be transmitted over the Internet.
URL encoding (also known as percent-encoding) is a mechanism for encoding information in a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI).
Characters that are not allowed in a URL (like spaces, &, ?, or non-ASCII characters) must be translated into a safe format. For example, a space becomes %20.
encodeURIComponent encodes almost every reserved character, so it is the right choice for a single query-string value or path segment. encodeURI leaves characters like '/', '?' and '&' intact because it is meant for encoding a whole URL. This tool percent-encodes a component.
In a path, a space is percent-encoded as %20. In the query string of an application/x-www-form-urlencoded form, a space is often encoded as '+'. Both decode back to a space; which one you need depends on where in the URL the value goes.
No. Encoding and decoding run locally in your browser, so you can safely process URLs that contain tokens, session IDs or other sensitive parameters.