How do I URL encode a string

Question

I have a URL string (NSString) with spaces and & characters. How do I url encode the entire string (including the & ampersand

Answer 1

After reading all the answers for this topic and the (wrong) accepted one, I want to add my contribution.

IF the target is iOS7+, and in 2017 it should since XCode makes really hard to deliver compatibility under iOS8, the best way, thread safe, fast, amd will full UTF-8 support to do this is:

(Objective C code)

@implementation NSString (NSString_urlencoding)

- (NSString *)urlencode {
    static NSMutableCharacterSet *chars = nil;
    static dispatch_once_t pred;

    if (chars)
        return [self stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters:chars];

    // to be thread safe
    dispatch_once(&pred, ^{
        chars = NSCharacterSet.URLQueryAllowedCharacterSet.mutableCopy;
        [chars removeCharactersInString:@"!*'();:@&=+$,/?%#[]"];
    });
    return [self stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters:chars];
}
@end

This will extend NSString, will exclude RFC forbidden characters, support UTF-8 characters, and let you use things like:

NSString *myusername = "I'm[evil]&want(to)break!!!$->àéìòù";
NSLog(@"Source: %@ -> Dest: %@", myusername, [myusername urlencode]);

That will print on your debug console:

Source: I'm[evil]&want(to)break!!!$->àéìòù -> Dest: I%27m%5Bevil%5D%26want%28to%29break%21%21%21%24-%3E%C3%A0%C3%A9%C3%AC%C3%B2%C3%B9

... note also the use of dispatch_once to avoid multiple initializations in multithread environments.