Swift - encode URL

Question

If I encode a string like this:

var escapedString = originalString.stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding(NSUTF8StringEncoding)

it does

Answer 1

Swift 4 & 5 (Thanks @sumizome for suggestion. Thanks @FD_ and @derickito for testing)

var allowedQueryParamAndKey = NSCharacterSet.urlQueryAllowed
allowedQueryParamAndKey.remove(charactersIn: ";/?:@&=+$, ")
paramOrKey.addingPercentEncoding(withAllowedCharacters: allowedQueryParamAndKey)

Swift 3

let allowedQueryParamAndKey =  NSCharacterSet.urlQueryAllowed.remove(charactersIn: ";/?:@&=+$, ")
paramOrKey.addingPercentEncoding(withAllowedCharacters: allowedQueryParamAndKey)

Swift 2.2 (Borrowing from Zaph's and correcting for url query key and parameter values)

var allowedQueryParamAndKey =  NSCharacterSet(charactersInString: ";/?:@&=+$, ").invertedSet
paramOrKey.stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters(allowedQueryParamAndKey)

Example:

let paramOrKey = "https://some.website.com/path/to/page.srf?a=1&b=2#top"
paramOrKey.addingPercentEncoding(withAllowedCharacters: allowedQueryParamAndKey)
// produces:
"https%3A%2F%2Fsome.website.com%2Fpath%2Fto%2Fpage.srf%3Fa%3D1%26b%3D2%23top"

This is a shorter version of Bryan Chen's answer. I'd guess that urlQueryAllowed is allowing the control characters through which is fine unless they form part of the key or value in your query string at which point they need to be escaped.

Answer 2

Swift 3:

let allowedCharacterSet = (CharacterSet(charactersIn: "!*'();:@&=+$,/?%#[] ").inverted)

if let escapedString = originalString.addingPercentEncoding(withAllowedCharacters: allowedCharacterSet) {
//do something with escaped string
}

Answer 3

This one is working for me.

func stringByAddingPercentEncodingForFormData(plusForSpace: Bool=false) -> String? {

    let unreserved = "*-._"
    let allowed = NSMutableCharacterSet.alphanumericCharacterSet()
    allowed.addCharactersInString(unreserved)

    if plusForSpace {
        allowed.addCharactersInString(" ")
    }

    var encoded = stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters(allowed)

    if plusForSpace {
        encoded = encoded?.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString(" ", withString: "+")
    }
    return encoded
}

I found above function from this link: http://useyourloaf.com/blog/how-to-percent-encode-a-url-string/.

Answer 4

You can use URLComponents to avoid having to manually percent encode your query string:

let scheme = "https"
let host = "www.google.com"
let path = "/search"
let queryItem = URLQueryItem(name: "q", value: "Formula One")


var urlComponents = URLComponents()
urlComponents.scheme = scheme
urlComponents.host = host
urlComponents.path = path
urlComponents.queryItems = [queryItem]

if let url = urlComponents.url {
    print(url)   // "https://www.google.com/search?q=Formula%20One"
}

---

extension URLComponents {
    init(scheme: String = "https",
         host: String = "www.google.com",
         path: String = "/search",
         queryItems: [URLQueryItem]) {
        self.init()
        self.scheme = scheme
        self.host = host
        self.path = path
        self.queryItems = queryItems
    }
}

---

let query = "Formula One"
if let url = URLComponents(queryItems: [URLQueryItem(name: "q", value: query)]).url {
    print(url)  // https://www.google.com/search?q=Formula%20One
}

Answer 5

Swift 4.2

A quick one line solution. Replace originalString with the String you want to encode.

var encodedString = originalString.addingPercentEncoding(withAllowedCharacters: CharacterSet(charactersIn: "!*'();:@&=+$,/?%#[]{} ").inverted)

Online Playground Demo