HTTP URL Address Encoding in Java

Question

My Java standalone application gets a URL (which points to a file) from the user and I need to hit it and download it. The problem I am facing is that I am not able to encod

Answer 1

I develop a library that serves this purpose: galimatias. It parses URL the same way web browsers do. That is, if a URL works in a browser, it will be correctly parsed by galimatias.

In this case:

// Parse
io.mola.galimatias.URL.parse(
    "http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/first book.pdf"
).toString()

Will give you: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/first%20book.pdf. Of course this is the simplest case, but it'll work with anything, way beyond java.net.URI.

You can check it out at: https://github.com/smola/galimatias

Answer 2

I'm going to add one suggestion here aimed at Android users. You can do this which avoids having to get any external libraries. Also, all the search/replace characters solutions suggested in some of the answers above are perilous and should be avoided.

Give this a try:

String urlStr = "http://abc.dev.domain.com/0007AC/ads/800x480 15sec h.264.mp4";
URL url = new URL(urlStr);
URI uri = new URI(url.getProtocol(), url.getUserInfo(), url.getHost(), url.getPort(), url.getPath(), url.getQuery(), url.getRef());
url = uri.toURL();

You can see that in this particular URL, I need to have those spaces encoded so that I can use it for a request.

This takes advantage of a couple features available to you in Android classes. First, the URL class can break a url into its proper components so there is no need for you to do any string search/replace work. Secondly, this approach takes advantage of the URI class feature of properly escaping components when you construct a URI via components rather than from a single string.

The beauty of this approach is that you can take any valid url string and have it work without needing any special knowledge of it yourself.

Answer 3

If anybody doesn't want to add a dependency to their project, these functions may be helpful.

We pass the 'path' part of our URL into here. You probably don't want to pass the full URL in as a parameter (query strings need different escapes, etc).

/**
 * Percent-encodes a string so it's suitable for use in a URL Path (not a query string / form encode, which uses + for spaces, etc)
 */
public static String percentEncode(String encodeMe) {
    if (encodeMe == null) {
        return "";
    }
    String encoded = encodeMe.replace("%", "%25");
    encoded = encoded.replace(" ", "%20");
    encoded = encoded.replace("!", "%21");
    encoded = encoded.replace("#", "%23");
    encoded = encoded.replace("$", "%24");
    encoded = encoded.replace("&", "%26");
    encoded = encoded.replace("'", "%27");
    encoded = encoded.replace("(", "%28");
    encoded = encoded.replace(")", "%29");
    encoded = encoded.replace("*", "%2A");
    encoded = encoded.replace("+", "%2B");
    encoded = encoded.replace(",", "%2C");
    encoded = encoded.replace("/", "%2F");
    encoded = encoded.replace(":", "%3A");
    encoded = encoded.replace(";", "%3B");
    encoded = encoded.replace("=", "%3D");
    encoded = encoded.replace("?", "%3F");
    encoded = encoded.replace("@", "%40");
    encoded = encoded.replace("[", "%5B");
    encoded = encoded.replace("]", "%5D");
    return encoded;
}

/**
 * Percent-decodes a string, such as used in a URL Path (not a query string / form encode, which uses + for spaces, etc)
 */
public static String percentDecode(String encodeMe) {
    if (encodeMe == null) {
        return "";
    }
    String decoded = encodeMe.replace("%21", "!");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%20", " ");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%23", "#");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%24", "$");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%26", "&");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%27", "'");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%28", "(");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%29", ")");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%2A", "*");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%2B", "+");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%2C", ",");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%2F", "/");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%3A", ":");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%3B", ";");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%3D", "=");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%3F", "?");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%40", "@");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%5B", "[");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%5D", "]");
    decoded = decoded.replace("%25", "%");
    return decoded;
}

And tests:

@Test
public void testPercentEncode_Decode() {
    assertEquals("", percentDecode(percentEncode(null)));
    assertEquals("", percentDecode(percentEncode("")));

    assertEquals("!", percentDecode(percentEncode("!")));
    assertEquals("#", percentDecode(percentEncode("#")));
    assertEquals("$", percentDecode(percentEncode("$")));
    assertEquals("@", percentDecode(percentEncode("@")));
    assertEquals("&", percentDecode(percentEncode("&")));
    assertEquals("'", percentDecode(percentEncode("'")));
    assertEquals("(", percentDecode(percentEncode("(")));
    assertEquals(")", percentDecode(percentEncode(")")));
    assertEquals("*", percentDecode(percentEncode("*")));
    assertEquals("+", percentDecode(percentEncode("+")));
    assertEquals(",", percentDecode(percentEncode(",")));
    assertEquals("/", percentDecode(percentEncode("/")));
    assertEquals(":", percentDecode(percentEncode(":")));
    assertEquals(";", percentDecode(percentEncode(";")));

    assertEquals("=", percentDecode(percentEncode("=")));
    assertEquals("?", percentDecode(percentEncode("?")));
    assertEquals("@", percentDecode(percentEncode("@")));
    assertEquals("[", percentDecode(percentEncode("[")));
    assertEquals("]", percentDecode(percentEncode("]")));
    assertEquals(" ", percentDecode(percentEncode(" ")));

    // Get a little complex
    assertEquals("[]]", percentDecode(percentEncode("[]]")));
    assertEquals("a=d%*", percentDecode(percentEncode("a=d%*")));
    assertEquals(")  (", percentDecode(percentEncode(")  (")));
    assertEquals("%21%20%2A%20%27%20%28%20%25%20%29%20%3B%20%3A%20%40%20%26%20%3D%20%2B%20%24%20%2C%20%2F%20%3F%20%23%20%5B%20%5D%20%25",
                    percentEncode("! * ' ( % ) ; : @ & = + $ , / ? # [ ] %"));
    assertEquals("! * ' ( % ) ; : @ & = + $ , / ? # [ ] %", percentDecode(
                    "%21%20%2A%20%27%20%28%20%25%20%29%20%3B%20%3A%20%40%20%26%20%3D%20%2B%20%24%20%2C%20%2F%20%3F%20%23%20%5B%20%5D%20%25"));

    assertEquals("%23456", percentDecode(percentEncode("%23456")));

}

Answer 4

You can also use GUAVA and path escaper: UrlEscapers.urlFragmentEscaper().escape(relativePath)

Answer 5

Nitpicking: a string containing a whitespace character by definition is not a URI. So what you're looking for is code that implements the URI escaping defined in Section 2.1 of RFC 3986.

Answer 6

In addition to the Carlos Heuberger's reply: if a different than the default (80) is needed, the 7 param constructor should be used:

URI uri = new URI(
        "http",
        null, // this is for userInfo
        "www.google.com",
        8080, // port number as int
        "/ig/api",
        "weather=São Paulo",
        null);
String request = uri.toASCIIString();