PHP: urlencode() vs. rawurlencode()

The difference between these two function is in their return values.

urlencode():
string urlencode ( string $str )

Parameters: str[The strings to be encoded]

urlencode Returns a string in which all non-alphanumeric characters except -_. have been replaced with a percent (%) sign followed by two hex digits and spaces encoded as plus (+) signs. It is encoded the same way that the posted data from a WWW form is encoded, that is the same way as in application/x-www-form-urlencoded media type.

This differs from the RFC 3986 encoding (see rawurlencode()) in that for historical reasons, spaces are encoded as plus (+) signs.
[ http://php.net/manual/en/function.urlencode.php]

rawurlencode():

string rawurlencode ( string $str )

Parameters : str [The url to be encoded]

rawurlencode Returns a string in which all non-alphanumeric characters except -_.~ have been replaced with a percent (%) sign followed by two hex digits. This is the encoding described in » RFC 3986 for protecting literal characters from being interpreted as special URL delimiters, and for protecting URLs from being mangled by transmission media with character conversions (like some email systems).

[http://php.net/manual/en/function.rawurlencode.php]

So the main difference is that urlencode() encodes space as + signs and rawurlencode() encodes space as %20

When we use urlencode() and rawurlencode():

Every HTTP URL conforms to the following URI syntax:

url:[//[host[:port]][/path][?query][#fragment]

• If you encode path segment, use rawurlencode().
• If you encode query component, use urlencode().

The Example of ` urlencode ` function

<?php
$segment = 'today is hot day';
$path = urlencode($segment);
?>
<a href= "http://example.com/<?php echo $path ?>">Click here</a>

The above example will output :

<a href="http://example.com/today+is+hot+day">Click Me</a>

The Example of ` rawurlencode ` function

<?php
$segment = 'today is hot day';
$path = rawurlencode ($segment);
?>
<a href= "http://example.com/<?php echo $path ?>">Click here</a>

The above example will output :

<a href="http://example.com/today%20is%20hot%20day">Click Me</a>

[encodes space as %20]

[NB:http://php.net/manual/en/function.urlencode.php, http://php.net/manual/en/function.rawurlencode.php]