Master PHP’s rawurldecode(): Decode URLs Like a Pro

In web development we often need to handle URLs, and special characters must be encoded to be transmitted correctly; sometimes we need to decode them back to their original form. PHP provides several functions for URL encoding and decoding, one of which is rawurldecode().

The rawurldecode() function decodes a URL‑encoded string and returns the original URL. It is primarily used to decode strings that were encoded with the urlencode() function.

Syntax: string rawurldecode ( string $str ) Here $str is the URL string to be decoded, and the function returns the decoded string.

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 example, an encoded URL is assigned to $url, then rawurldecode() decodes it, and the result is printed with echo.

Running the code outputs: https://www.example.com/?q=добрый汉字 We can see that rawurldecode() restores the original URL string.

Note that rawurldecode() only decodes special characters in the URL; it does not process other characters in query parameters. To decode an entire URL, use the urldecode() function instead.

In summary, rawurldecode() is a convenient PHP function for decoding URLs that were encoded with urlencode(), helping ensure correct transmission and parsing of URL parameters in web development.