How to Decode URLs in PHP with rawurldecode: A Complete Guide

When developing web applications, special characters in URLs must be encoded for safe transmission and later decoded to retrieve the original address. PHP offers several functions for this purpose, and rawurldecode() is a convenient way to reverse the encoding performed by urlencode().

Function Syntax

string rawurldecode ( string $str )

The parameter $str is the URL‑encoded string that you want to decode; the function returns the decoded string.

Practical Example

<?php
$url = "https%3A%2F%2Fwww.example.com%2F%3Fq%3D%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B1%D1%80%D1%8B%D0%B9%E6%B1%89%E5%AD%97"; // URL encoded with urlencode()
$decodedUrl = rawurldecode($url);

echo $decodedUrl;
?>

In this script, a URL that contains Cyrillic and Chinese characters is first encoded using urlencode() and stored in $url. The rawurldecode() call converts it back to its original form, and the result is printed.

Result

https://www.example.com/?q=добрый汉字

The output confirms that the encoded string has been successfully restored to the original URL.

Important Note

rawurldecode()

only decodes the special characters that were percent‑encoded; it does not process other characters that may appear in query parameters. If you need to decode an entire URL, including plus signs and spaces, use urldecode() instead.

Summary

rawurldecode()

provides a quick way to decode URLs that were encoded with urlencode(), making it useful for handling URL parameters correctly in PHP backend development.