Using PHP rawurldecode() to Decode URL‑Encoded Strings

In web development we often need to handle URLs, and special characters must be encoded; sometimes we need to decode them. PHP provides a set of functions for URL encoding and decoding, one of which is rawurldecode() .

rawurldecode() decodes a URL‑encoded string back to its original form. It is mainly used to decode strings that were encoded with urlencode() .

The syntax of rawurldecode() is:

string rawurldecode ( string $str )

$str represents the URL string to be decoded, and the function returns the decoded string.

Example usage:

<?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, a URL is first encoded with urlencode() and stored in $url , then rawurldecode() restores the original URL, which is printed with echo .

Running the code outputs:

https://www.example.com/?q=добрый汉字

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 urldecode() instead.

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