How can I URL encode a string in Excel VBA?

Question

Is there a built-in way to URL encode a string in Excel VBA or do I need to hand roll this functionality?

Answer 1

The accepted answer's code stopped on a Unicode error in Access 2013, so I wrote a function for myself with high readability that should follow RFC 3986 according to Davis Peixoto, and cause minimal trouble in various environments.

Note: The percent sign itself must be replaced first, or it will double-encode any previously encoded characters. Replacing space with + was added, not to conform with RFC 3986, but to provide links that don't break due to formatting. It is optional.

Public Function URLEncode(str As Variant) As String
    Dim i As Integer, sChar() As String, sPerc() As String
    sChar = Split("%|!|*|'|(|)|;|:|@|&|=|+|$|,|/|?|#|[|]| ", "|")
    sPerc = Split("%25 %21 %2A %27 %28 %29 %3B %3A %40 %26 %3D %2B %24 %2C %2F %3F %23 %5B %5D +", " ")
    URLEncode = Nz(str)
    For i = 0 To 19
        URLEncode = Replace(URLEncode, sChar(i), sPerc(i))
    Next i
End Function