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URL Encoding (Percent Encoding)

URL encoding converts characters into a format that can be transmitted over the Internet.

URLs can only be sent over the Internet using the ASCII character-set.

Since URLs often contain characters outside the ASCII set, the URL has to be converted into a valid ASCII format.

URL encoding replaces unsafe ASCII characters with a "%" followed by two hexadecimal digits.

URLs cannot contain spaces. URL encoding normally replaces a space with a plus (+) sign or with %20.