Encoding and decoding URLs in Node.js - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Encoding and decoding URLs

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple Node.js app that handles web addresses. Sometimes URLs have special characters that need to be changed into a safe format to send over the internet. This process is called encoding. Later, you might want to change them back to normal, which is decoding.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to encode a URL string to a safe format and decode it back to the original string using Node.js built-in functions.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a variable with a URL string containing special characters

Create a variable to hold the encoded URL

Encode the URL string using the correct Node.js function

Decode the encoded URL back to the original string

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Web applications often need to send URLs with special characters safely over the internet. Encoding ensures URLs are valid and understood by browsers and servers.

💼 Career

Understanding URL encoding and decoding is essential for backend and frontend developers working with web APIs, routing, and data transmission.

1

Create the URL string

Create a variable called url and set it to the string "https://example.com/search?query=Node.js & encoding".

Node.js

// Create a variable called url with the exact string
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use const to declare the variable and assign the exact string including spaces and special characters.

2

Create a variable for the encoded URL

Create a variable called encodedUrl to hold the encoded version of url.

Node.js

const url = "https://example.com/search?query=Node.js & encoding";
// Create a variable called encodedUrl
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Just create the variable first. You will assign the encoded value in the next step.

3

Encode the URL string

Assign to encodedUrl the encoded version of url using the Node.js global function encodeURIComponent.

Node.js

const url = "https://example.com/search?query=Node.js & encoding";
const encodedUrl = "";
// Encode url using encodeURIComponent and assign to encodedUrl
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use encodeURIComponent(url) to convert the URL string into a safe encoded format.

4

Decode the encoded URL

Create a variable called decodedUrl and assign it the decoded version of encodedUrl using the Node.js global function decodeURIComponent.

Node.js

const url = "https://example.com/search?query=Node.js & encoding";
const encodedUrl = encodeURIComponent(url);
// Create decodedUrl by decoding encodedUrl using decodeURIComponent
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use decodeURIComponent(encodedUrl) to get back the original URL string.