Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global objects/encodeURIComponent

The encodeURIComponent() function encodes a URI by replacing each instance of certain characters by one, two, three, or four escape sequences representing the UTF-8 encoding of the character (will only be four escape sequences for characters composed of two "surrogate" characters).

Syntax

encodeURIComponent(str);

Parameters

str: String. A component of a URI.

Return value

A new string representing the provided string encoded as a URI component.

Description

encodeURIComponent() escapes all characters except:

Not Escaped:

    A-Z a-z 0-9 - _ . ! ~ * ' ( )

encodeURIComponent() differs from encodeURI as follows:

var set1 = ";,/?:@&=+$";  // Reserved Characters
var set2 = "-_.!~*'()";   // Unescaped Characters
var set3 = "#";           // Number Sign
var set4 = "ABC abc 123"; // Alphanumeric Characters + Space

console.log(encodeURI(set1)); // ;,/?:@&=+$
console.log(encodeURI(set2)); // -_.!~*'()
console.log(encodeURI(set3)); // #
console.log(encodeURI(set4)); // ABC%20abc%20123 (the space gets encoded as %20)

console.log(encodeURIComponent(set1)); // %3B%2C%2F%3F%3A%40%26%3D%2B%24
console.log(encodeURIComponent(set2)); // -_.!~*'()
console.log(encodeURIComponent(set3)); // %23
console.log(encodeURIComponent(set4)); // ABC%20abc%20123 (the space gets encoded as %20)

Note that a URIError will be thrown if one attempts to encode a surrogate which is not part of a high-low pair, e.g.,

// high-low pair ok
console.log(encodeURIComponent('\uD800\uDFFF'));

// lone high surrogate throws "URIError: malformed URI sequence"
console.log(encodeURIComponent('\uD800'));

// lone low surrogate throws "URIError: malformed URI sequence"
console.log(encodeURIComponent('\uDFFF'));

Use encodeURIComponent() on user-entered fields from forms POST'd to the server. This will encode & symbols that may inadvertently be generated during data entry for special HTML entities or other characters that require encoding/decoding.

For example, if a user writes Jack & Jill, the text may get encoded as Jack & Jill. Without encodeURIComponent() the ampersand could be interpretted on the server as the start of a new field and jeopardize the integrity of the data.

For application/x-www-form-urlencoded, spaces are to be replaced by +, so one may wish to follow a encodeURIComponent() replacement with an additional replacement of %20 with +.

To be more stringent in adhering to RFC 3986 (which reserves !, ', (, ), and *), even though these characters have no formalized URI delimiting uses, the following can be safely used:

function fixedEncodeURIComponent(str) {
  return encodeURIComponent(str).replace(/[!'()*]/g, function(c) {
    return '%' + c.charCodeAt(0).toString(16);
  });
}

Examples

Encoding for Content-Disposition and Link headers

The following example provides the special encoding required within UTF-8 Content-Disposition and Link server response header parameters (e.g., UTF-8 filenames):

var fileName = 'my file(2).txt';
var header = "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename*=UTF-8''" 
             + encodeRFC5987ValueChars(fileName);

console.log(header); 
// logs "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename*=UTF-8''my%20file%282%29.txt"


function encodeRFC5987ValueChars(str) {
    return encodeURIComponent(str).
        // Note that although RFC3986 reserves "!", RFC5987 does not,
        // so we do not need to escape it
        replace(/['()]/g, escape). // i.e., %27 %28 %29
        replace(/\*/g, '%2A').
            // The following are not required for percent-encoding per RFC5987, 
            // so we can allow for a little better readability over the wire: |`^
            replace(/%(?:7C|60|5E)/g, unescape);
}

// here is an alternative to the above function
function encodeRFC5987ValueChars2(str) {
  return encodeURIComponent(str).
    // Note that although RFC3986 reserves "!", RFC5987 does not,
    // so we do not need to escape it
    replace(/['()*]/g, c => "%" + c.charCodeAt(0).toString(16)). // i.e., %27 %28 %29 %2a (Note that valid encoding of "*" is %2A
                                                                 // which necessitates calling toUpperCase() to properly encode)
    // The following are not required for percent-encoding per RFC5987,
    // so we can allow for a little better readability over the wire: |`^
    replace(/%(7C|60|5E)/g, (str, hex) => String.fromCharCode(parseInt(hex, 16)));
}

Specifications

Specification
ECMAScript (ECMA-262)The definition of 'encodeURIComponent' in that specification.

Browser compatibility

Update compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop						Mobile						Server
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet	Node.js
`encodeURIComponent`	Chrome Full support 1	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 1	IE Full support 5.5	Opera Full support 7	Safari Full support 1.1	WebView Android Full support 1	Chrome Android Full support 18	Firefox Android Full support 4	Opera Android Full support 10.1	Safari iOS Full support 1	Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0	nodejs Full support 0.1.100

Legend

Full support: Full support