Percent-Encode a String

Question

Introduction

As some of you may know, URLs actually have a list of characters that do special things. For example, the / character separates parts of the URL, and the ?, &, and = characters are used to pass query parameters to the server. In fact, there is a bunch of characters with special functions: $&+,/:;=?@. When you need to use these characters in the URL for any other reason besides the special functions, you have to do something called percent-encoding.

Percent encoding is when you take a character's hexadecimal value and prepend a % character to the beginning of it. For example, the character ? would be encoded as %3F, and the character & would be encoded as %26. In a URL specifically, this allows you to send these characters as data via the URL without causing parsing problems. Your challenge will be to take a string, and percent-encode all of the characters that need to be encoded.

The Challenge

You shall write a program or function that takes in a single string consisting of characters with codepoints 00-FF (ASCII and Extended ASCII characters). You will then have to output or return the same string with each character percent-encoded if necessary. Built-ins that accomplish this task are not allowed, nor are standard loopholes. For reference, here is a list of every character that needs to be percent encoded:

• Control characters (Codepoints 00-1F and 7F)
• Extended ASCII characters (Codepoints 80-FF)
• Reserved characters ($&+,/:;=?@, i.e. codepoints 24, 26, 2B, 2C, 2F, 3A, 3B, 3D, 3F, 40)
• Unsafe characters (" <>#%{}|\^~[]`, i.e. codepoints 20, 22, 3C, 3E, 23, 25, 7B, 7D, 7C, 5C, 5E, 7E, 5B, 5D, 60)

Here is a the same list, but instead as a list of decimal codepoints:

0-31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 43, 44, 47, 58, 59, 60, 62, 61, 63, 64, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128-255

This is code golf, so shortest code in bytes (or approved alternative scoring method) wins!

Test Cases

http://codegolf.stackexchange.com/  =>  http%3A%2F%2Fcodegolf.stackexchange.com%2F
[@=>]{#}  =>  %5B%40%3D%3E%5D%7B%23%7D
Test String  =>  Test%20String
ÑÉÐÔ®  =>  %D1%C9%D0%D4%AE
  =>  %0F%16%7F (Control characters 0F, 16, and 7F)
 ¡¢£¤¥¦§¨©ª«¬­®¯°±²³´µ¶·¸¹º»¼½¾¿ÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖ×ØÙÚÛÜÝÞßàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõö÷øùúûüýþÿ  =>  %80%81%82%83%84%85%86%87%88%89%8A%8B%8C%8D%8E%8F%90%91%92%93%94%95%96%97%98%99%9A%9B%9C%9D%9E%9F%A0%A1%A2%A3%A4%A5%A6%A7%A8%A9%AA%AB%AC%AD%AE%AF%B0%B1%B2%B3%B4%B5%B6%B7%B8%B9%BA%BB%BC%BD%BE%BF%C0%C1%C2%C3%C4%C5%C6%C7%C8%C9%CA%CB%CC%CD%CE%CF%D0%D1%D2%D3%D4%D5%D6%D7%D8%D9%DA%DB%DC%DD%DE%DF%E0%E1%E2%E3%E4%E5%E6%E7%E8%E9%EA%EB%EC%ED%EE%EF%F0%F1%F2%F3%F4%F5%F6%F7%F8%F9%FA%FB%FC%FD%FE%FF (Extended ASCII characters 80-FF)
 !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~  =>  %20!%22%23%24%25%26'()*%2B%2C-.%2F0123456789%3A%3B%3C%3D%3E%3F%40ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ%5B%5C%5D%5E_%60abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz%7B%7C%7D%7E

Answer 1

Vim, 67 bytes/keystrokes

:s/\c[^a-z!'()*0-9._-]/\='%'.printf("%02x",char2nr(submatch(0)))/g<cr>

Note that <cr> represents the enter key, e.g. 0x0D which is a single byte.

This is a pretty straightforward solution. Explanation:

:s/                                                                    "Search and replace
   \c                                                                  "Case-insensitive
     [^a-z!'()*0-9._-]/                                                "A negative range. Matches any character not alphabetc, numeric or in "!'()*0-9._-"
                       \=                                              "Evaluate
                         '%'                                           "a percent sign string
                            .                                          "Concatenated with
                             printf("%02x",char2nr(submatch(0)))       "The hex value of the character we just matched
                                                                /g     "Make this apply to ever match
                                                                  <cr> "Actually run the command

That printf("%02x",char2nr(submatch(0))) garbage is terribly ungolfy.

Answer 2

Pyth, 30 28 26 bytes

L?hx+G+rG1CGbb+\%.HCbsmydz

try it online

Explanation

L?hx+G+rG1CGbb+\%.HCbsmydz
L?hx+G+rG1CGbb+\%.HCb       First part, L defines the function y(b)
 ?hx+G+rG1CGbb+\%.HCb       ? is the ternary operator
  hx+G+rG1CGb               This part will be evaluated
  hx                        x will find the first occurence of a
                            character in a list. If it doesn't
                            find one, it will return -1. hx then
                            equals 0 (or false).
    +G+rG1CG                The list of allowed characters, a
                            concetanation (+) of the alphabet (G),
                            uppercase alphabet (rG1) and numbers
                            (CG, see below for details)
            b               The character to find in the list
             b              True branch of the ternary operator,
                            the character is allowed and returned.
              +\%.HCb       False branch, convert to hex and add %
                     smydz  The actual program
                      mydz  Map every character in the input (z)
                            using the function y on every d
                     s      Join the array, and implicit print.

CG is this trick that generate a huge number that contains all possible digits. This is perfect, since we don't care for duplicates when checking whether a string is in another.

Answer 3

Perl, 40 bytes

39 bytes code + -p.

A bit lame, but I think it's the shortest solution...

s/[^!'()*-.\w]/sprintf'%%%02x',ord$&/ge

Usage

echo -n ' !"#$%&'\''()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqstuvwxyz{|}~' | perl -pe "s/[^'()*-.\w]/sprintf'%%%02x',ord$&/ge"
%20%21%22%23%24%25%26'()*+,-.%2f0123456789%3a%3b%3c%3d%3e%3f%40ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ%5b%5c%5d%5e_%60abcdefghijklmnopqstuvwxyz%7b%7c%7d%7e

Answer 4

Julia, 47 bytes

!s=replace(s,r"[^\w!'()*.-]",c->"%"hex(c[1],2))

Try it online!

Answer 5

Python 3, 92 bytes

5 bytes thanks to orlp.

1 byte thanks to Sp3000.

import re;lambda s:''.join(re.match("[!'-*.0-9\w-]",c,256)and c or'%%%02X'%ord(c)for c in s)

Ideone it!

Answer 6

C, 83 bytes

f(char*p){for(;*p;++p)printf(isalnum(*p)||strchr("!'()*-._",*p)?"%c":"%%%02X",*p);}

Answer 7

Python, 86 bytes

lambda s:"".join(["%%%02X"%ord(c),c][c<"{"and c.isalnum()or c in"!'()*-._"]for c in s)

Port of my C answer.

Answer 8

Ruby, 37 + 3 = 40 bytes

Run with -p (3 extra bytes), like $ ruby -p percent_encode.rb:

gsub(/[^\w!'()*-.]/){"%%%02X"%$&.ord}

Answer 9

Jelly, 28 27 bytes

ḟØWḟ©“!'()*-.”Od⁴‘ịØH”%p®,y

This is a monadic link. Try it online!

How it works

ḟØWḟ©“!'()*-.”Od⁴‘ịØH”%p®,y  Monadic link. Argument: s (string)

 ØW                          Yield “0...9A...Z_a...z”.
ḟ                            Remove these characters from s.
     “!'()*-.”               Yield “!'()*-.”.
   ḟ                         Remove these characters from s.
    ©                        Copy the result to the register.
              O              Ordinal; get the code point of each character.
               d⁴            Divmod 16; yield quotient and remainder modulo 16.
                 ’           Decrement the results.
                  ịØH        Index into “0123456789ABCDEF”.
                     ”p%     Perform Cartesian product with ”%, prepending it to
                             each pair of hexadecimal digits.
                        ®,   Yield [t, r], where t is the string in the register
                             and r the result of the Cartesian product.
                          y  Use this pair to perform transliteration on s.

Answer 10

Haskell, 201 179 178 127 119 bytes

import Data.Char;import Numeric;f=(=<<)(\c->if isAlphaNum c&&isAscii c||elem c"-_.~"then[c]else '%':(showHex$ord c)"")

Ungolfed:

import Data.Char
import Numeric

f=(=<<) e
e c = if isAlphaNum c && isAscii c && c `elem` "-_.~" then [c] else '%' : (showHex $ ord c) ""

Answer 11

16/32-bit x86 assembly, 73 bytes

Byte code:

AC 3C 21 72 2A 74 3E 3C 26 76 24 3C 2B 72 36 3C
2C 76 1C 3C 2F 72 2E 74 16 3C 3A 72 28 74 10 3C
5F 74 22 50 0C 60 3C 60 74 02 3C 7B 58 72 16 D4
10 3C 09 1C 69 2F 86 E0 3C 09 1C 69 2F 92 B0 25
AA 92 AA 86 E0 AA E2 B8 C3

Disassembly:

l0: lodsb         ;fetch a character
    cmp  al, 21h
    jb   l1       ;encode 0x00-0x20
    je   l2       ;store 0x21
    cmp  al, 26h
    jbe  l1       ;encode 0x22-0x26
    cmp  al, 2bh
    jb   l2       ;store 0x27-0x2A
    cmp  al, 2ch
    jbe  l1       ;encode 0x2B-0x2C
    cmp  al, 2fh
    jb   l2       ;store 0x2D-0x2E
    je   l1       ;encode 0x2F
    cmp  al, 3ah
    jb   l2       ;store 0x30-0x39
    je   l1       ;encode 0x3A
    cmp  al, 5fh
    je   l2       ;store 0x5F
    push eax
    or   al, 60h  ;merge ranges
    cmp  al, 60h
    je   l3       ;encode 0x40, 0x60
    cmp  al, 7bh
l3: pop  eax
    jb   l2       ;store 0x41-0x5A, 0x61-0x7A
                  ;encode 0x3B-0x3F, 0x5B-0x5E, 0x7B-0xFF

l1: aam  10h      ;split byte to nibbles
    cmp  al, 9    ;convert 0x0A-0x0F 
    sbb  al, 69h  ;to
    das           ;0x41-0x46 ('A'-'F')
    xchg ah, al   ;swap nibbles
    cmp  al, 9    ;do
    sbb  al, 69h  ;other
    das           ;half
    xchg edx, eax ;save in edx
    mov  al, '%'
    stosb         ;emit '%'
    xchg edx, eax
    stosb         ;emit high nibble
    xchg ah, al

l2: stosb         ;emit low nibble or original character
    loop l0       ;until end of string
    ret

Call with:
- esi = pointer to buffer that holds source string;
- edi = pointer to buffer that receives encoded string;
- ecx = length of source string.

Answer 12

Python 2, 78 bytes

lambda s:"".join(["%%%02x"%ord(c),c][c.isalnum()or c in"!'()*-._"]for c in s)

More nicely formatted:

lambda s:
    "".join(["%%%02x" % ord(c), c][c.isalnum() or c in"!'()*-._"] for c in s)

Answer 13

SQF, 199 176

Using the function-as-a-file format:

i="";a="0123456789ABCDEF!'()*-.GHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ_";{i=i+if((toUpper _x)in a)then{_x}else{x=(toArray[_x])select 0;"%"+(a select floor(x/16))+(a select(x%16))}}forEach _this;i

Call as "STRING" call NAME_OF_COMPILED_FUNCTION

Answer 14

PowerShell v2+, 146 bytes

param($n)37,38+0..36+43,44,47+58..64+91,93+96+123..255-ne33|%{$n=$n-replace"[$([char]$_)]",("%{0:x2}"-f$_)};$n-replace'\\','%5c'-replace'\^','%5e'

Long because I wanted to show a different approach rather than just copy-pasting the same regex string that every else is using.

Instead here, we loop through every code point that must be percent-encoded, and do a literal -replace on the input string $n each iteration (re-saving back into $n). Then we need to account for the two special characters that need escaping, \ and ^, so those are in separate -replace elements at the end. Since we didn't re-save that final string, it's left on the pipeline and printing is implicit.