Swift - encode URL

Question

If I encode a string like this:

var escapedString = originalString.stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding(NSUTF8StringEncoding)

it does

Answer 1

Swift 4:

It depends by the encoding rules followed by your server.

Apple offer this class method, but it don't report wich kind of RCF protocol it follows.

var escapedString = originalString.addingPercentEncoding(withAllowedCharacters: .urlHostAllowed)!

Following this useful tool you should guarantee the encoding of these chars for your parameters:

• $ (Dollar Sign) becomes %24
• & (Ampersand) becomes %26
• + (Plus) becomes %2B
• , (Comma) becomes %2C
• : (Colon) becomes %3A
• ; (Semi-Colon) becomes %3B
• = (Equals) becomes %3D
• ? (Question Mark) becomes %3F
• @ (Commercial A / At) becomes %40

In other words, speaking about URL encoding, you should following the RFC 1738 protocol.

And Swift don't cover the encoding of the + char for example, but it works well with these three @ : ? chars.

So, to correctly encoding each your parameter , the .urlHostAllowed option is not enough, you should add also the special chars as for example:

encodedParameter = parameter.replacingOccurrences(of: "+", with: "%2B")

Hope this helps someone who become crazy to search these informations.