jQuery urlencode/decode patch help

Question

Hi Gang,

I'm using this jQuery urlencode and urldecode plugin - very simple and easy to use but it doesn't, in its original form, remove + from the string. The one comment on the home page suggests a patch but I don't know how to implement it. Can anyone help me out?

The Page: http://www.digitalbart.com/jquery-and-urlencode/

//URL Encode/Decode
$.extend({URLEncode:function(c){var o='';var x=0;c=c.toString();
var r=/(^[a-zA-Z0-9_.]*)/;
  while(x<c.length){var m=r.exec(c.substr(x));
    if(m!=null && m.length>1 && m[1]!=''){o+=m[1];x+=m[1].length;
    }else{if(c[x]==' ')o+='+';else{var d=c.charCodeAt(x);var h=d.toString(16);
    o+='%'+(h.length<2?'0':'')+h.toUpperCase();}x++;}}return o;},
URLDecode:function(s){var o=s;var binVal,t;var r=/(%[^%]{2})/;
  while((m=r.exec(o))!=null && m.length>1 && m[1]!=''){
  b=parseInt(m[1].substr(1),16);
  t=String.fromCharCode(b);o=o.replace(m[1],t);}return o;}
});

The proposed Patch:

function dummy_url_decode(url) {
// fixed -- + char decodes to space char
var o = url;
var binVal, t, b;
var r = /(%[^%]{2}|\+)/;
while ((m = r.exec(o)) != null && m.length > 1 && m[1] != '') {
if (m[1] == '+') {
t = ' ';
} else {
b = parseInt(m[1].substr(1), 16);
t = String.fromCharCode(b);
}
o = o.replace(m[1], t);
}
return o;
}

Thanks!

Answer 1

Don't use that plugin at all; it's pointless. Javascript already supports URL encoding and decoding with built-in functions (encodeURIComponent and decodeURIComponent). Spaces are encoded as %20 with that mechanism.

If your server-side code puts plus signs in there for spaces, you can get rid of those with a simple regex replacement since there won't be any "real" plus signs to worry about (they're encoded as %2B):

var decoded = decodeURIComponent(encoded.replace(/\+/g, '%20'));