How do you UrlEncode without using System.Web?

Martin_Brown_20553 0
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I am trying to write a windows client application that calls a web site for data. To keep the install to a minimum I am trying only use dlls in the .NET Framework Client Profile. Trouble is that I need to UrlEncode some parameters, is there an easy way to do this without importing System.Web.dll which is not part of the Client Pofile?

.net-client-profile urlencode .net c#
9 Answers

I've been forced to use .NET 4.0 for some of the projects I've built, and due to this, neither WebUtility nor HttpUtility will contain these. I used the Uri.EscapeDataString() method which works really well, but I did not like the fact it didn't encode all standard special characters (meaning ! "#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[\]^_`{|}~) in one go. I also deal more with Visual Basic than C#, so I do not know for sure what it would take to convert the following, but it works fantastic for my basic needs.

I won't be dealing with any UTF-8 formatted strings with this as it's only used for some very basic text manipulation and has served me well so far. It will not parse out line breaks in any fashion (the text I'm manipulating won't have them), and you have to process the % sign first to prevent it from ruining the encoding of the rest of the symbols. A bit garish, but it works.

Function EncodeURL(ByVal DecodedString As String) As String

  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "%", "%25", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, " ", "%20", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "!", "%21", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, """", "%22", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "#", "%23", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "$", "%24", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "&", "%26", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "'", "%27", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "(", "%28", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, ")", "%29", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "*", "%2A", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "+", "%2B", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, ",", "%2C", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "-", "%2D", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, ".", "%2E", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "/", "%2F", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, ":", "%3A", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, ";", "%3B", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "<", "%3C", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "=", "%3D", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, ">", "%3E", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "?", "%3F", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "@", "%40", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "[", "%5B", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "\", "%5C", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "]", "%5D", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "^", "%5E", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "_", "%5F", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "`", "%60", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "{", "%7B", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "|", "%7C", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "}", "%7D", 1, vbTextCompare)
  DecodedString = Replace(DecodedString, "~", "%7E", 1, vbTextCompare)

  EncodeURL = DecodedString

End Function

Input:

! "#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[]^_`{|}~

Output

%21%20%22%23%24%25%26%27%28%29%2A%2B%2C%2D%2E%2F%3A%3B%3C%3D%3E%3F%40%5B%5C%5D%5E%5F%60%7B%7C%7D%7E
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