Emacs Lisp: URL Percent Decode/Encode

Percent Encode URL

url-hexify-string

URL percent encoded string. e.g. " " ⇒ "%20"

(require 'url-util)

(url-hexify-string "Dürer" )
;; "D%C3%BCrer"

;; Chinese
(url-hexify-string "文本")
;; "%E6%96%87%E6%9C%AC"

;; it'll also encode puntuation chars
(url-hexify-string "'(),/\"" )
;; "%27%28%29%2C%2F%22"

url-encode-url

Like url-hexify-string, but leave URL's protocol part and domain etc parts intact.

(require 'url-util)

(url-encode-url "http://example.com/i♥cats")
;; "http://example.com/i%E2%99%A5cats"

Percent Decode URL

url-unhex-string

Decode URL percent encoded string. Example: "%20" → " "

To decode a hexified string, use url-unhex-string then decode-coding-string

(require 'url-util)

(setq x "http%3A%2F%2Fexample.org%2FD%C3%BCrer")

(decode-coding-string (url-unhex-string x) 'utf-8)
;; "http://example.org/Dürer"

2014-04-27 thanks nns for help.