Encoding URLs with Python's urllib

When building URLs in Python, you may need to include special characters or spaces that can cause issues if left unencoded. Thankfully, Python's urllib library provides a simple way to encode these characters.

The urllib.parse.urlencode() function takes a dictionary and converts it into a url encoded string that can be appended to URLs. Here's a quick example:

import urllib.parse

params = {'q': 'python urllib', 'type': 'articles', 'sort': 'relevance'}
url = 'https://www.example.com/search?' + urllib.parse.urlencode(params)

print(url)

This would print:

https://www.example.com/search?q=python+urllib&type=articles&sort=relevance

The key things urlencode does:

So behind the scenes, it is converting the space in "python urllib" to a + sign.

Some common use cases for urlencode:

A few things to watch out for:

To decode an encoded URL string back to a dictionary, use urllib.parse.parse_qs() or urllib.parse.parse_qsl():

import urllib.parse

url = "https://www.example.com/search?q=python+urllib&type=articles"
print(urllib.parse.parse_qs(url)) 

This covers the basics of encoding parameters into URLs with Python. The urllib.parse module contains many helpful functions for manipulating URLs. When building URLs, be mindful of encoding special characters correctly.