URIencoded

URIencoded refers to the process of converting characters into a format that can be reliably transmitted over the internet within a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). URIs, which include URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) and URNs (Uniform Resource Names), are used to identify resources. However, not all characters are permitted within URIs. Certain characters, such as spaces, punctuation marks, and characters from outside the ASCII character set, can have special meanings or are simply not allowed.

URIencoding, also known as percent-encoding, replaces these disallowed characters with a percent sign (%) followed by the two-digit hexadecimal representation of the character's ASCII value. For example, a space character, which has an ASCII value of 32, is represented as %20. The character "?", which has a hexadecimal ASCII value of 3F, would be encoded as %3F. Reserved characters, which have specific meanings within the URI syntax (like '/', '?', '&', '='), are also encoded if they appear in a context where they are not intended to be interpreted as delimiters or operators.

This encoding mechanism ensures that URIs can be parsed correctly by software and transmitted without ambiguity across different systems and networks. It is a fundamental aspect of how web addresses and other identifiers are constructed and interpreted, allowing for the seamless exchange of information on the internet. The process is standardized by internet engineering task force (IETF) RFCs.