decodeURI not fully working

Question

I'm trying to remove the URI encoding from a link, but decodeURI doesn't seem to be fully working.

My example link is this: /linkout?remoteUrl=http%253a%252f%252fsandbox.yoyogames.com%252fgames%252f171985-h-a-m-heroic-armies-marching

After running the JavaScript script, it looks like this:

http%3a%2f%2fsandbox.yoyogames.com%2fgames%2f171985-h-a-m-heroic-armies-marching 

How can I get rid of the remaining not correct codes in the URI?

My decoding code:

var href = $(this).attr('href');            // get the href var href = decodeURI(href.substring(19));   // remove the outgoing part and remove the escaping $(this).attr('href', 'http://'+href)        // change link on page 

Answer 1

the url looks as it was encoded twice, I also suggest to use decodeURIComponent

decodeURIComponent(decodeURIComponent("http%253a%252f%252fsandbox.yoyogames.com%252fgames%252f171985-h-a-m-heroic-armies-marching")) 

results in: "http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/171985-h-a-m-heroic-armies-marching"

but you should check why you have the url encoded twice in advance

Answer 2

I just encountered this situation in an ASHX handler for the PUT verb. ASP.NET is apparently encoding my XML for me, so my server-side call to HttpUtility.UrlEncode was not needed. Fixing it by calling client-side Javascript decodeURI twice -- is closing the barn door after the cows have already left and the HTTP I was sending was a protocol violation.

I would have commented and plus-one'd Tobias Krogh's answer, but I don't have the points to do so…

However, I still think that it is important to note that the failure being discussed here is not a Javascript decodeURI or anything else -- it is a data validation error.