URLDecode(urlEncodedString)

Description

Decodes a URL-encoded string.

Category

Other functions

See also

URLEncodedFormat

Parameters

Parameter
Description
urlEncodedString
A string that has been URL-encoded.

Usage

URL encoding is a data format in which high ASCII and nonalphanumeric characters are encoded using a percent sign followed by the two character hexadecimal representation of the character code. For example, a character with code 129 is encoded as %81. Spaces can be encoded using the plus sign (+).

Query strings in HTTP are always URL-encoded.

URL-encoded strings can be created with the URLEncodedFormat function.

Example

Here is an example of the URLDecode and URLEncodedFormat functions. In the example, a string that contains all ASCII character codes in the range 1-255 is created, encoded and decoded. The decoded value is compared with the original string to demonstrate their equality.

<cfscript>
    // Build string
    s = "";
    for (c = 1; c lte 256; c = c + 1)
    {
        s = s & chr(c);
    }
    // Encode string and display result
    enc = URLEncodedFormat(s);
    writeOutput("Encoded string is: '#enc#'.<BR>");
    // Decode and compare result with original
    dec = URLDecode(enc);
    if (dec neq s)
    {
        writeOutput("Decoded is not the same as encoded.");
    }
    else
    {
        writeOutput("All's well on the Western front.");
    }
</cfscript>