How can I URL encode a string in Excel VBA?

Question

Is there a built-in way to URL encode a string in Excel VBA or do I need to hand roll this functionality?

Answer 1

Since office 2013 use this inbuilt function here.

If before office 2013

Function encodeURL(str As String)
Dim ScriptEngine As ScriptControl
Set ScriptEngine = New ScriptControl
ScriptEngine.Language = "JScript"

ScriptEngine.AddCode "function encode(str) {return encodeURIComponent(str);}"
Dim encoded As String


encoded = ScriptEngine.Run("encode", str)
encodeURL = encoded
End Function

Add Microsoft Script Control as reference and you are done.

Same as last post just complete function ..works!

Answer 2

No, nothing built-in (until Excel 2013 - see this answer).

There are three versions of URLEncode() in this answer.

• A function with UTF-8 support. You should probably use this one (or the alternative implementation by Tom) for compatibility with modern requirements.
• For reference and educational purposes, two functions without UTF-8 support:
  • one found on a third party website, included as-is. (This was the first version of the answer)
  • one optimized version of that, written by me

---

A variant that supports UTF-8 encoding and is based on ADODB.Stream (include a reference to a recent version of the "Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects" library in your project):

Public Function URLEncode( _
   ByVal StringVal As String, _
   Optional SpaceAsPlus As Boolean = False _
) As String
  Dim bytes() As Byte, b As Byte, i As Integer, space As String

  If SpaceAsPlus Then space = "+" Else space = "%20"

  If Len(StringVal) > 0 Then
    With New ADODB.Stream
      .Mode = adModeReadWrite
      .Type = adTypeText
      .Charset = "UTF-8"
      .Open
      .WriteText StringVal
      .Position = 0
      .Type = adTypeBinary
      .Position = 3 ' skip BOM
      bytes = .Read
    End With

    ReDim result(UBound(bytes)) As String

    For i = UBound(bytes) To 0 Step -1
      b = bytes(i)
      Select Case b
        Case 97 To 122, 65 To 90, 48 To 57, 45, 46, 95, 126
          result(i) = Chr(b)
        Case 32
          result(i) = space
        Case 0 To 15
          result(i) = "%0" & Hex(b)
        Case Else
          result(i) = "%" & Hex(b)
      End Select
    Next i

    URLEncode = Join(result, "")
  End If
End Function

---

This function was found on freevbcode.com:

Public Function URLEncode( _
   StringToEncode As String, _
   Optional UsePlusRatherThanHexForSpace As Boolean = False _
) As String

  Dim TempAns As String
  Dim CurChr As Integer
  CurChr = 1

  Do Until CurChr - 1 = Len(StringToEncode)
    Select Case Asc(Mid(StringToEncode, CurChr, 1))
      Case 48 To 57, 65 To 90, 97 To 122
        TempAns = TempAns & Mid(StringToEncode, CurChr, 1)
      Case 32
        If UsePlusRatherThanHexForSpace = True Then
          TempAns = TempAns & "+"
        Else
          TempAns = TempAns & "%" & Hex(32)
        End If
      Case Else
        TempAns = TempAns & "%" & _
          Right("0" & Hex(Asc(Mid(StringToEncode, _
          CurChr, 1))), 2)
    End Select

    CurChr = CurChr + 1
  Loop

  URLEncode = TempAns
End Function

I've corrected a little bug that was in there.

---

I would use more efficient (~2× as fast) version of the above:

Public Function URLEncode( _
   StringVal As String, _
   Optional SpaceAsPlus As Boolean = False _
) As String

  Dim StringLen As Long: StringLen = Len(StringVal)

  If StringLen > 0 Then
    ReDim result(StringLen) As String
    Dim i As Long, CharCode As Integer
    Dim Char As String, Space As String

    If SpaceAsPlus Then Space = "+" Else Space = "%20"

    For i = 1 To StringLen
      Char = Mid$(StringVal, i, 1)
      CharCode = Asc(Char)
      Select Case CharCode
        Case 97 To 122, 65 To 90, 48 To 57, 45, 46, 95, 126
          result(i) = Char
        Case 32
          result(i) = Space
        Case 0 To 15
          result(i) = "%0" & Hex(CharCode)
        Case Else
          result(i) = "%" & Hex(CharCode)
      End Select
    Next i
    URLEncode = Join(result, "")
  End If
End Function

Note that neither of these two functions support UTF-8 encoding.

Answer 3

I had problem with encoding cyrillic letters to URF-8.

I modified one of the above scripts to match cyrillic char map. Implmented is the cyrrilic section of

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8 and http://www.utf8-chartable.de/unicode-utf8-table.pl?start=1024

Other sections development is sample and need verification with real data and calculate the char map offsets

Here is the script:

Public Function UTF8Encode( _
   StringToEncode As String, _
   Optional UsePlusRatherThanHexForSpace As Boolean = False _
) As String

  Dim TempAns As String
  Dim TempChr As Long
  Dim CurChr As Long
  Dim Offset As Long
  Dim TempHex As String
  Dim CharToEncode As Long
  Dim TempAnsShort As String

  CurChr = 1

  Do Until CurChr - 1 = Len(StringToEncode)
    CharToEncode = Asc(Mid(StringToEncode, CurChr, 1))
' http://www.utf8-chartable.de/unicode-utf8-table.pl?start=1024
' as per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8 specification the engoding is as follows

    Select Case CharToEncode
'   7   U+0000 U+007F 1 0xxxxxxx
      Case 48 To 57, 65 To 90, 97 To 122
        TempAns = TempAns & Mid(StringToEncode, CurChr, 1)
      Case 32
        If UsePlusRatherThanHexForSpace = True Then
          TempAns = TempAns & "+"
        Else
          TempAns = TempAns & "%" & Hex(32)
        End If
      Case 0 To &H7F
            TempAns = TempAns + "%" + Hex(CharToEncode And &H7F)
      Case &H80 To &H7FF
'   11  U+0080 U+07FF 2 110xxxxx 10xxxxxx
' The magic is in offset calculation... there are different offsets between UTF-8 and Windows character maps
' offset 192 = &HC0 = 1100 0000 b  added to start of UTF-8 cyrillic char map at &H410
          CharToEncode = CharToEncode - 192 + &H410
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex((CharToEncode And &H3F) Or &H80), 2)
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex(((CharToEncode \ &H40) And &H1F) Or &HC0), 2) & TempAnsShort
          TempAns = TempAns + TempAnsShort

'' debug and development version
''          CharToEncode = CharToEncode - 192 + &H410
''          TempChr = (CharToEncode And &H3F) Or &H80
''          TempHex = Hex(TempChr)
''          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & TempHex, 2)
''          TempChr = ((CharToEncode And &H7C0) / &H40) Or &HC0
''          TempChr = ((CharToEncode \ &H40) And &H1F) Or &HC0
''          TempHex = Hex(TempChr)
''          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & TempHex, 2) & TempAnsShort
''          TempAns = TempAns + TempAnsShort

      Case &H800 To &HFFFF
'   16 U+0800 U+FFFF 3 1110xxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx
' not tested . Doesnot match Case condition... very strange
        MsgBox ("Char to encode  matched U+0800 U+FFFF: " & CharToEncode & " = &H" & Hex(CharToEncode))
''          CharToEncode = CharToEncode - 192 + &H410
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex((CharToEncode And &H3F) Or &H80), 2)
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex(((CharToEncode \ &H40) And &H3F) Or &H80), 2) & TempAnsShort
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex(((CharToEncode \ &H1000) And &HF) Or &HE0), 2) & TempAnsShort
          TempAns = TempAns + TempAnsShort

      Case &H10000 To &H1FFFFF
'   21 U+10000 U+1FFFFF 4 11110xxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx
''        MsgBox ("Char to encode  matched &H10000 &H1FFFFF: " & CharToEncode & " = &H" & Hex(CharToEncode))
' sample offset. tobe verified
          CharToEncode = CharToEncode - 192 + &H410
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex((CharToEncode And &H3F) Or &H80), 2)
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex(((CharToEncode \ &H40) And &H3F) Or &H80), 2) & TempAnsShort
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex(((CharToEncode \ &H1000) And &H3F) Or &H80), 2) & TempAnsShort
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex(((CharToEncode \ &H40000) And &H7) Or &HF0), 2) & TempAnsShort
          TempAns = TempAns + TempAnsShort

      Case &H200000 To &H3FFFFFF
'   26  U+200000 U+3FFFFFF 5 111110xx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx
''        MsgBox ("Char to encode  matched U+200000 U+3FFFFFF: " & CharToEncode & " = &H" & Hex(CharToEncode))
' sample offset. tobe verified
          CharToEncode = CharToEncode - 192 + &H410
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex((CharToEncode And &H3F) Or &H80), 2)
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex(((CharToEncode \ &H40) And &H3F) Or &H80), 2) & TempAnsShort
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex(((CharToEncode \ &H1000) And &H3F) Or &H80), 2) & TempAnsShort
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex(((CharToEncode \ &H40000) And &H3F) Or &H80), 2) & TempAnsShort
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex(((CharToEncode \ &H1000000) And &H3) Or &HF8), 2) & TempAnsShort
          TempAns = TempAns + TempAnsShort

      Case &H4000000 To &H7FFFFFFF
'   31  U+4000000 U+7FFFFFFF 6 1111110x 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx
''        MsgBox ("Char to encode  matched U+4000000 U+7FFFFFFF: " & CharToEncode & " = &H" & Hex(CharToEncode))
' sample offset. tobe verified
          CharToEncode = CharToEncode - 192 + &H410
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex((CharToEncode And &H3F) Or &H80), 2)
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex(((CharToEncode \ &H40) And &H3F) Or &H80), 2) & TempAnsShort
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex(((CharToEncode \ &H1000) And &H3F) Or &H80), 2) & TempAnsShort
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex(((CharToEncode \ &H40000) And &H3F) Or &H80), 2) & TempAnsShort
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex(((CharToEncode \ &H1000000) And &H3F) Or &H80), 2) & TempAnsShort
          TempAnsShort = "%" & Right("0" & Hex(((CharToEncode \ &H40000000) And &H1) Or &HFC), 2) & TempAnsShort
          TempAns = TempAns + TempAnsShort

      Case Else
' somethig else
' to be developped
        MsgBox ("Char to encode not matched: " & CharToEncode & " = &H" & Hex(CharToEncode))

    End Select

    CurChr = CurChr + 1
  Loop

  UTF8Encode = TempAns
End Function

Good luck!