Using PHP rawurldecode() to Decode URL‑Encoded Strings

In web development, handling URLs often requires encoding special characters, and sometimes decoding them back to their original form; PHP offers the rawurldecode() function for this purpose.

The rawurldecode() function decodes a URL‑encoded string, typically one produced by urlencode() , restoring it for processing and display.

The syntax of rawurldecode() is:

string rawurldecode ( string $str )

Here $str is 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 by urlencode()
$decodedUrl = rawurldecode($url);
echo $decodedUrl;
?>

This script first encodes a URL with urlencode() , stores it in $url , then decodes it with rawurldecode() and outputs the result.

Running the code produces:

https://www.example.com/?q=добрый汉字

The output shows that rawurldecode() successfully restores the original URL string.

Note that rawurldecode() only decodes special characters in the URL; other characters remain unchanged. To decode an entire URL, use urldecode() instead.

In summary, rawurldecode() is a PHP shortcut for decoding URLs encoded by urlencode() , commonly used in backend web development to ensure correct handling of URL parameters.