Question

So I look at UrlEncode function from here:

std::string UriEncode(const std::string & sSrc)
{
   const char DEC2HEX[16 + 1] = "0123456789ABCDEF";
   const unsigned char * pSrc = (const unsigned char *)sSrc.c_str();
   const int SRC_LEN = sSrc.length();
   unsigned char * const pStart = new unsigned char[SRC_LEN * 3];
   unsigned char * pEnd = pStart;
   const unsigned char * const SRC_END = pSrc + SRC_LEN;

   for (; pSrc < SRC_END; ++pSrc)
   {
      if (SAFE[*pSrc]) 
         *pEnd++ = *pSrc;
      else
      {
         // escape this char
         *pEnd++ = '%';
         *pEnd++ = DEC2HEX[*pSrc >> 4];
         *pEnd++ = DEC2HEX[*pSrc & 0x0F];
      }
   }

   std::string sResult((char *)pStart, (char *)pEnd);
   delete [] pStart;
   return sResult;
}

It does not compile under my Visual Studio 2008. How to make it work (beter not using any special windows functions), what does SAFE[ const unsigned char ] means anyway?

Update:
Looking at zip file under source I found

const char SAFE[256] =
{
    /*      0 1 2 3  4 5 6 7  8 9 A B  C D E F */
    /* 0 */ 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,
    /* 1 */ 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,
    /* 2 */ 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,
    /* 3 */ 1,1,1,1, 1,1,1,1, 1,1,0,0, 0,0,0,0,

    /* 4 */ 0,1,1,1, 1,1,1,1, 1,1,1,1, 1,1,1,1,
    /* 5 */ 1,1,1,1, 1,1,1,1, 1,1,1,0, 0,0,0,0,
    /* 6 */ 0,1,1,1, 1,1,1,1, 1,1,1,1, 1,1,1,1,
    /* 7 */ 1,1,1,1, 1,1,1,1, 1,1,1,0, 0,0,0,0,

    /* 8 */ 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,
    /* 9 */ 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,
    /* A */ 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,
    /* B */ 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,

    /* C */ 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,
    /* D */ 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,
    /* E */ 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,
    /* F */ 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0
};

It scares me… How to make it usable in C++ class?

Answer 1

SAFE simply appears to be an array marking which characters are valid in a URI. It even has row and column comments to make it easier to see which entry’s which.

You’ll see that the first valid character is 0x30, or 0. 0x41-0x5A are the capital letters, etc.

This way, SAFE[*pSrc] is simply non-zero (“true”) when a character is valid in a URI, and zero (“false”) when not.