Data Encoding Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples - v5.23, by Herong Yang
URL Encoding on HTML Form Data - IE
This section provides a tutorial example on how Internet Explorer (IE) 7.0 is applying URL encoding on HTML form input data. IE uses application/x-www-form-urlencoded encoding.
In order to test how a browser is doing URL encoding on HTML form data, I wrote this simple HTML page:
<html>
<!-- URL_Encoding_Form_Test.html
-- Copyright (c) 2002 HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
-->
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
<title>URL Encoding Test</title>
</head>
<body>
<h3>URL Encoding Test</h3>
<form action="URL_Encoding_Form_Test.html" method="GET">
Input: <input type=text size=24 maxlength=40 name=Name
value="和荣, how a u?">
<input name=submit value=Submit type=submit>
</form>
</body>
</html>
If you open this HTML page with Internet Explorer (IE) 7.0, you will see that there is an input string in a form ready to be submitted.
If you click the Submit button on the page, the input string will be URL encoded and submitted as part of a page request URL, which is showing on the refreshed browser window.
The page request URL showing on the browser is something like this:
file:///C:/herong/URL_Encoding_Form_Test.html? Name=%E5%92%8C%E8%8D%A3%2C+how+a+u%3F&submit=Submit
Noticed that how the input string "和荣, how a u?" is URL encoded as "%E5%92%8C%E8%8D%A3%2C+how+a+u%3F".
This test confirms that:
- IE is converting form input data using the application/x-www-form-urlencoded encoding.
- Reserved characters "," and "?" are percent encoded as "%2C" and "%3F".
- Space character " " is converted to "+".
- Double byte Chinese characters "和" and "荣" are UTF-8 encoded and percent encoded as "%E5%92%8C" and "%E8%8D%A3"
See the screenshot below for the encoded input date in page request URL:
Table of Contents
Base64 Encoding and Decoding Tools
Base64URL - URL Safe Base64 Encoding
►URL Encoding, URI Encoding, or Percent Encoding
►URL Encoding on HTML Form Data - IE
URL Encoding on HTML Form Data - Firefox
application/x-www-form-urlencoded Encoding in Java