Does a `+` in a URL scheme/host/path represent a space?

user_49733 0
Viewed 242638

I am aware that a + in the query string of a URL represents a space. Is this also the case outside of the query string region? That is to say, does the following URL:

http://a.com/a+b/c

actually represent:

http://a.com/a b/c

(and thus need to be encoded if it should actually be a +), or does it in fact actually represent a+b/c?

query-string encoding url
6 Answers

You can find a nice list of corresponding URL encoded characters on W3Schools.

  • + becomes %2B
  • space becomes %20
user_1204530
  • Percent encoding in the path section of a URL is expected to be decoded, but
  • any + characters in the path component is expected to be treated literally.

To be explicit: + is only a special character in the query component.

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3986

user_434520

Thou shalt always encode URLs.

Here is how Ruby encodes your URL:

irb(main):008:0> CGI.escape "a.com/a+b"
=> "a.com%2Fa%2Bb"
Lennart_664450
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