Percent-decoding a URL

[ClementsDan]

Shortly before my co-worker left for vacation today, he wrote something like this:

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

[PIEBALDconsult]

Board-up his cube.

[notmasteryet]

At first I thought he was smart to use Excel to generate code using ="strNew.Replace(""%" & DEC2HEX(A1) & """, """ & CHAR(A1) & """);" to save typing of boring code that anybody can type. :) But then I noticed case sensitive replacements that as possible to generate using following VB.NET code:

For i As Integer = 32 To 126
Dim ch As Char = Chr(i)
If Not Char.IsLetterOrDigit(ch) Then
Console.WriteLine("strNew.Replace(""%{0:X2}"", ""{1}"");", i, ch)
If i Mod 16 > 9 Then
Console.WriteLine("strNew.Replace(""%{0:x2}"", ""{1}"");", i, ch)
End If
End If
Next i

It's still less typing than traditional way to do stuff. Genius! :cool:

[Tony Pottier]

Your coworker is a genius. strNew.Replace("%7E", "~"); ... strNew.Replace("%7e", "~"); This one adds another wtf to the thing. You should probably send to to the dailywtf.com.

[Giorgi Dalakishvili]

Apart from the fact that it's a horror code, it will just won't work as he needs to assign value returned by Replace to strnew strNew = strNew.Replace("%20", " ");

Giorgi Dalakishvili #region signature My Articles Asynchronous Registry Notification Using Strongly-typed WMI Classes in .NET [^] My blog #endregion

[notmasteryet]

If the code was written on C++ strNew might be a CString, if it was written on C# it might be StringBuilder.

[Luc Pattyn]

any regex alternatives by your co-worker? that might be really interesting... :laugh:

Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]

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Fixturized forever. :confused:

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[supercat9]

Assuming strNew is of a type that allows replace to be used upon it in that fashion, would its treatment of "%253F" match any known standard?

[ClementsDan]

"%253F" → "%3F" → "?". I don't know of any standard that encodes a question mark that way.

[ClementsDan]

Right. It's a CString.

[Luc Pattyn]

This minor mistake is easily fixed by moving the %25 -> % replacement to the bottom of the magnificent method. :)

Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]

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Fixturized forever. :confused:

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[Chris Meech]

Your co-worker definitely needs the vacation. Months of rest and medication may help them out. :)

Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]

[StevenWalsh]

not if its a StringBuilder

Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer. -Fred Brooks