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Subject: [PHP-DEV] Potential RFC: mb_rawurlencode() ?
Message-ID: <C47E5955-E75E-49A7-88D3-6957669057F0@pmjones.io>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2025 12:48:36 -0500
To: PHP Internals List <internals@lists.php.net>
From: pmjones@pmjones.io ("Paul M. Jones")

Hi all,

The discussion around WHATWG-URL on this list, as well as my work =
coordinating Uri-Interop <https://github.com/uri-interop/interface>, =
lead me to think PHP needs a multibyte equivalent of rawurlencode().

Broadly speaking, as far as I can tell:

- For an RFC 3986 URI, delimiters need to be percent-encoded, as well as =
non-ASCII characters.
- For an RFC 3987 IRI, delimiters need to be percent-encoded, but UCS =
characters do not.

(There are other details but I think you get the idea.)

The rawurlencode() function does fine for URIs, but not for IRIs. Using =
rawurlencode() for an IRI will encode multibyte characters when it =
should leave them alone. For example:

```
$val =3D 'f=C3=BC bar';

$uriPath =3D '/heads/' . rawurlencode($val) . '/tails/';
assert($uriPath =3D=3D=3D '/heads/f%C3%BC%20bar/tails/'); // true

$iriPath =3D '/heads/' . rawurlencode($val) . '/tails/');
assert($iriPath =3D=3D=3D '/heads/f=C3=BC bar/tails/'; // false
```

(This might apply to WHATWG-URL component construction as well.)

Have I missed something, either in the specs or in PHP itself?

If not, how do we feel about an RFC for mb_rawurlencode()? A naive =
userland implementation might look something like the code below.

Thoughts?

* * *

```php
function mb_rawurlencode(string $string) : string
{
    $encoded =3D '';

    foreach (mb_str_split($string) as $char) {
        $encoded .=3D match ($char) {
            chr(0) =3D> "%00",
            chr(1) =3D> "%01",
            chr(2) =3D> "%02",
            chr(3) =3D> "%03",
            chr(4) =3D> "%04",
            chr(5) =3D> "%05",
            chr(6) =3D> "%06",
            chr(7) =3D> "%07",
            chr(8) =3D> "%08",
            chr(9) =3D> "%09",
            chr(10) =3D> "%0A",
            chr(11) =3D> "%0B",
            chr(12) =3D> "%0C",
            chr(13) =3D> "%0D",
            chr(14) =3D> "%0E",
            chr(15) =3D> "%0F",
            chr(16) =3D> "%10",
            chr(17) =3D> "%11",
            chr(18) =3D> "%12",
            chr(19) =3D> "%13",
            chr(20) =3D> "%14",
            chr(21) =3D> "%15",
            chr(22) =3D> "%16",
            chr(23) =3D> "%17",
            chr(24) =3D> "%18",
            chr(25) =3D> "%19",
            chr(26) =3D> "%1A",
            chr(27) =3D> "%1B",
            chr(28) =3D> "%1C",
            chr(29) =3D> "%1D",
            chr(30) =3D> "%1E",
            chr(31) =3D> "%1F",
            chr(127) =3D> "%7F",
            "!" =3D> '%21',
            "#" =3D> '%23',
            "$" =3D> '%24',
            "%" =3D> '%25',
            "&" =3D> '%26',
            "'" =3D> '%27',
            "(" =3D> '%28',
            ")" =3D> '%29',
            "*" =3D> '%2A',
            "+" =3D> '%2B',
            "," =3D> '%2C',
            "/" =3D> '%2F',
            ":" =3D> '%3A',
            ";" =3D> '%3B',
            "=3D" =3D> '%3D',
            "?" =3D> '%3F',
            "[" =3D> '%5B',
            "]" =3D> '%5D',
            default =3D> $char,
        };
    }

    return $encoded;
}
```

* * *


-- pmj