Question

I need to URL encode just the directory path and file name of a URL using PHP.

So I want to encode something like http://example.com/file name and have it result in http://example.com/file%20name.

Of course, if I do urlencode('http://example.com/file name'); then I end up with http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Ffile+name.

The obvious (to me, anyway) solution is to use parse_url() to split the URL into scheme, host, etc. and then just urlencode() the parts that need it like the path. Then, I would reassemble the URL using http_build_url().

Is there a more elegant solution than that? Or is that basically the way to go?

Answer 1

@deceze definitely got me going down the right path, so go upvote his answer. But here is exactly what worked:

    $encoded_url = preg_replace_callback('#://([^/]+)/([^?]+)#', function ($match) {
                return '://' . $match[1] . '/' . join('/', array_map('rawurlencode', explode('/', $match[2])));
            }, $unencoded_url);

There are a few things to note:

• http_build_url requires a PECL install so if you are distributing your code to others (as I am in this case) you might want to avoid it and stick with reg exp parsing like I did here (stealing heavily from @deceze’s answer–again, go upvote that thing).

• urlencode() is not the way to go! You need rawurlencode() for the path so that spaces get encoded as %20 and not +. Encoding spaces as + is fine for query strings, but not so hot for paths.

• This won’t work for URLs that need a username/password encoded. For my use case, I don’t think I care about those, so I’m not worried. But if your use case is different in that regard, you’ll need to take care of that.