URI encoding in Java

Deprecated Apache Commons HttpClient 3.x:

 

import org.apache.commons.httpclient.URIException;

import org.apache.commons.httpclient.util.URIUtil;

String uriTest1(String uri) {

    String encodedUri = null;

    try {

        encodedUri = URIUtil.encodePath(uri,"UTF-8");

    } catch (URIException e) {

        System.err.println("Caught URI Exception");

        e.printStackTrace();

    }

    return encodedUri;

}

URIEncoder encodes to application/x-www-form-urlencoded (i.e. spaces turn to +)

import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
import java.net.URISyntaxException;
import java.net.URLEncoder;

String uriTest2(String uri) {
    String encodedUri = null;
    String encoding = "UTF-8";
    try {
        encodedUri = URLEncoder.encode(uri, encoding);
    } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
        System.err.println("Unsuported encoding: "+encoding);
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return encodedUri;
}

java.net.URI requires the whole URI to be input, but you can extract just the URI encoded query part (turns spaces to %20)

import java.net.URI;

private static String uriTest3(String path) {
    String encodedUri = null;
    URI uri = null;
    try {
        uri = new URI("http","bbc.co.uk","/search/news/",path,null);
    } catch (URISyntaxException e) {
        System.err.println("Caught URI Syntax Exception");
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    encodedUri = uri.getRawQuery();
    return encodedUri;
}
See also.