How to URL Encode a String in Golang

Introduction

URL encoding is a crucial operation in web development to safely include special characters and spaces in URLs. In Go, the net/url package provides functions for URL encoding. This guide will show you how to URL encode a string in Go, including code examples and detailed explanations.

Code and Explanation

First, import the net/url package to access the URL encoding functions.

import (
    "net/url"
    "fmt"
)

Define the string you want to URL encode.

originalString := "Hello, World! How are you?"

Use the url.QueryEscape() function to URL encode the string. This function replaces spaces and special characters with their respective percent-encoded values.

encodedString := url.QueryEscape(originalString)

Finally, print the encoded string to see the result.

fmt.Println("Encoded URL:", encodedString)

Full Code Example:

Here's the complete Go code for URL encoding a string:

package main

import (
    "net/url"
    "fmt"
)

func main() {
    originalString := "Hello, World! How are you?"
    encodedString := url.QueryEscape(originalString)
    fmt.Println("Encoded URL:", encodedString)
}

Explanation:

We import the net/url package to access the url.QueryEscape() function.
We define the originalString that we want to encode.
Using url.QueryEscape(), we encode the originalString and store the result in encodedString.
Finally, we print the encodedString, which now contains the URL-encoded version of the original string.