URL Encoding | Google Maps Platform

In HTML forms, the character = is used to separate a name from a value. The URI generic syntax uses URL encoding to deal with this problem, while HTML forms ... 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SomecharacterscannotbepartofaURL(forexample,thespace)andsomeother charactershaveaspecialmeaninginaURL.InHTMLforms,thecharacter=is usedtoseparateanamefromavalue.TheURIgenericsyntaxusesURLencoding todealwiththisproblem,whileHTMLformsmakesomeadditionalsubstitutions ratherthanapplyingpercentencodingforallsuchcharacters. Forexample,spacesinastringareeitherencodedwith%20orreplacedwith theplussign(+).Ifyouuseapipecharacter(|)asaseparator,besure toencodethepipeas%7C.Acommainastringshouldbeencodedas%2C. Itisrecommendedyouuseyourplatform'snormalURLbuildinglibrariesto automaticallyencodeyourURLs,toensuretheURLsareproperlyescapedforyour platform. BuildingavalidURL Youmaythinkthata"valid"URLisself-evident,but that'snotquitethecase.AURLenteredwithinanaddressbarina browser,forexample,maycontainspecialcharacters(e.g. "上海+中國");thebrowserneedstointernallytranslate thosecharactersintoadifferentencodingbeforetransmission. Bythesametoken,anycodethatgeneratesoracceptsUTF-8input mighttreatURLswithUTF-8charactersas"valid",butwouldalsoneed totranslatethosecharactersbeforesendingthemouttoawebserver. Thisprocessiscalled URL-encodingorpercent-encoding. Specialcharacters Weneedtotranslatespecialcharactersbecause allURLsneedtoconformtothesyntaxspecifiedbythe Uniform ResourceIdentifier(URI)specification.Ineffect,thismeansthatURLs mustcontainonlyaspecialsubsetofASCIIcharacters:thefamiliar alphanumericsymbols,andsomereservedcharactersforuseascontrol characterswithinURLs.Thistablesummarizesthesecharacters: SummaryofValidURLCharacters SetcharactersURLusage Alphanumeric abcdefghijklm nopqrstuvwxyz ABCDEFGHIJKLM NOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789 Textstrings,schemeusage(http),port(8080),etc. Unreserved -_.~ Textstrings Reserved !*'();:@&=+$,/?%#[] Controlcharactersand/orTextStrings WhenbuildingavalidURL,youmustensurethatitcontainsonlythosecharactersshowninthe SummaryofValidURLCharacterstable.ConformingaURLtousethissetofcharactersgenerally leadstotwoissues,oneofomissionandoneofsubstitution: Charactersthatyouwishtohandleexistoutsideofthe aboveset.Forexample,charactersinforeignlanguages suchas上海+中國needtobeencodedusingthe abovecharacters.Bypopularconvention,spaces(whichare notallowedwithinURLs)areoftenrepresentedusingtheplus '+'characteraswell. Charactersexistwithintheabovesetasreservedcharacters, butneedtobeusedliterally. Forexample,?isusedwithinURLstoindicate thebeginningofthequerystring;ifyouwishtousethe string"?andtheMysterions,"you'dneedtoencodethe '?'character. AllcharacterstobeURL-encodedareencoded usinga'%'characterandatwo-characterhex valuecorrespondingtotheirUTF-8character.Forexample, 上海+中國inUTF-8wouldbeURL-encodedas %E4%B8%8A%E6%B5%B7%2B%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B.The string?andtheMysterianswouldbeURL-encodedas %3F+and+the+Mysteriansor%3F%20and%20the%20Mysterians. Commoncharactersthatneedencoding Somecommoncharactersthatmustbeencodedare: Unsafecharacter Encodedvalue Space %20 " %22 < %3C > %3E # %23 % %25 | %7C ConvertingaURLthatyoureceivefromuserinputissometimes tricky.Forexample,ausermayenteranaddressas"5th&MainSt." Generally,youshouldconstructyourURLfromitsparts,treating anyuserinputasliteralcharacters. Additionally,URLsarelimitedto8192charactersforallGoogleMapsPlatformwebservices andstaticwebAPIs.Formostservices,thischaracterlimitwillseldombeapproached.However, notethatcertainserviceshaveseveralparametersthatmayresultinlongURLs. Sendfeedback Exceptasotherwisenoted,thecontentofthispageislicensedundertheCreativeCommonsAttribution4.0License,andcodesamplesarelicensedundertheApache2.0License.Fordetails,seetheGoogleDevelopersSitePolicies.JavaisaregisteredtrademarkofOracleand/oritsaffiliates. Lastupdated2022-10-10UTC. 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