Replace occurrences of space in URL

Question

I have a URL in an iPhone application to work with. But the problem is that it has some spaces in the URL. I want to replace the spaces with '%20'. I know that there are the stringByReplacingOccurencesOfString and stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding methods. I also have used them. But they are not working for me. The spaces are replaced by some unusual values.

I'm applying those methods on an instance of NSString.

Solution 1

The correct format for replacing space from url is :

Swift 4.2 , Swift 5

var urlString = originalString.addingPercentEncoding(withAllowedCharacters: .urlQueryAllowed)

Swift 4

var urlString = originalString.addingPercentEncoding(withAllowedCharacters: CharacterSet.urlQueryAllowed)

Objective C

NSString *urlString;//your url string.

urlString = [originalUrl stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@" " withString:@"%20"];

or

urlString = [originalUrl stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

iOS 9 and later

urlString = [originalUrl stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters:[NSCharacterSet URLQueryAllowedCharacterSet]];

Solution 2

Swift 2.0

let originalUrl = "http://myurl.com/my photo.png"
let urlNew:String = urlReq.stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters( NSCharacterSet.URLQueryAllowedCharacterSet())! 

Output:

http://myurl.com/my%20photo.png

Solution 3

To replace occurence in SWIFT 3 :

let updatedUrl = originalUrl.addingPercentEncoding(withAllowedCharacters: NSCharacterSet.urlQueryAllowed)

Solution 4

Swift 4

Another way to replace an empty space with replacingOccurrences method:

let yourString = "http://myurl.com/my photo.png"
let urlNew:String = yourString.replacingOccurrences(of: " ", with: "%20").trimmed 

That will replace the empty space (" ") with '%20'

Solution 5

Swift 5

var urlString = originalString.addingPercentEncoding(withAllowedCharacters: .urlQueryAllowed)

View more solutions

Comments

[Tieme]

Check out this post here: stackoverflow.com/questions/695911/… The Answer: NSString* escapedUrl = [originalUrl stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncodi‌​ng];

[Raj]

@RaquibulIslam I edited my answer , please check now

[girish_vr]

I think stringByReplacingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding() is deprecated. Instead, we can use stringByRemovingPercentEncoding

[Neuron]

welcome to SO. please improve the quality of you answer

[Sabrina]

error : Value of type 'String' has no member 'trim'

[Gilad Brunfman]

@Mehdico that is odd, I always trim my strings. At this example you don’t have to trim the string since you know what it is. But I’d clean the project and try to run it again. at the end of the string add .trimmed

[Sabrina]

dude i think you use an extension for String class, because .trimmed is not found in swift 4 and 4.2

[Gilad Brunfman]

You don’t have to trim the string in order to replace white space

[wesley franks]

You need to give more of an explanation to this code. There are others coming to this question looking for understanding not just code. Help others as well.

[shiv]

Doesn't work as URL has no member 'replacingOccurences'. String has that method but URL doesn't.

[Shrikant Phadke]

Try this for encoding :- stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters: URLPathAllowedCharacterSet and for decoding :- [NSURL fileURLWithPath:[self.yourString stringByRemovingPercentEncoding]]

[guru]

will it work for local path? i mean for documents dir

[guru]

will it work for local path? i mean for documents dir

[guru]

will it work for local path? i mean for documents dir

[guru]

will it work for local path? i mean for documents dir

[Raj]

@guru I don't think you need to format path for local document dir