URL Encoder and Decoder in Go — Code Examples

URL encoding (percent-encoding) replaces characters that are not allowed in URLs with a percent sign followed by their hexadecimal value. Here is how to encode and decode URL components in each language.

Go's net/url package provides url.QueryEscape for query parameters and url.PathEscape for path segments.

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "net/url"
)

func main() {
    input := "hello world & foo=bar"

    // Encode a query parameter value (spaces become +)
    encoded := url.QueryEscape(input)
    fmt.Println(encoded) // hello+world+%26+foo%3Dbar

    // Decode
    decoded, err := url.QueryUnescape("hello+world+%26+foo%3Dbar")
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
    fmt.Println(decoded) // hello world & foo=bar

    // Encode a path segment (spaces become %20, / is encoded)
    pathEncoded := url.PathEscape(input)
    fmt.Println(pathEncoded) // hello%20world%20&%20foo=bar

    // Build a query string
    params := url.Values{}
    params.Set("q", "hello world")
    params.Set("page", "1")
    fmt.Println(params.Encode()) // page=1&q=hello+world
}

• QueryEscape encodes spaces as + (for query strings); PathEscape encodes them as %20 (for URL paths).
• url.Values.Encode() builds a sorted, encoded query string.
• Always handle the error from QueryUnescape — malformed percent sequences return an error.

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