How to encode the plus (+) symbol in a URL

Question

The URL link below will open a new Google mail window. The problem I have is that Google replaces all the plus (+) signs in the email body with blank space. It looks like it only happens with the + sign. How can I remedy this? (I am working on a ASP.NET web page.)

https://mail.google.com/mail?view=cm&tf=0&[email protected]&su=some subject&body=Hi there+Hello there

(In the body email, "Hi there+Hello there" will show up as "Hi there Hello there")

Answer 1

The + character has a special meaning in a URL => it means whitespace - . If you want to use the literal + sign, you need to URL encode it to %2b:

body=Hi+there%2bHello+there 

Here's an example of how you could properly generate URLs in .NET:

var uriBuilder = new UriBuilder("https://mail.google.com/mail");  var values = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(string.Empty); values["view"] = "cm"; values["tf"] = "0"; values["to"] = "[email protected]"; values["su"] = "some subject"; values["body"] = "Hi there+Hello there";  uriBuilder.Query = values.ToString();  Console.WriteLine(uriBuilder.ToString()); 

The result

https://mail.google.com:443/mail?view=cm&tf=0&to=someemail%40somedomain.com&su=some+subject&body=Hi+there%2bHello+there

Answer 2

If you want a plus + symbol in the body you have to encode it as 2B.

For example: Try this