PHP urlencode - encode only the filename and dont touch the slashes

Question

http://www.example.com/some_folder/some file [that] needs "to" be (encoded).zip
urlencode($myurl);

The problem is that urlencode will also encode the slashes which makes the URL unusable. How can i encode just the last filename ?

Answer 1

Try this:

$str = 'http://www.example.com/some_folder/some file [that] needs "to" be (encoded).zip';
$pos = strrpos($str, '/') + 1;
$result = substr($str, 0, $pos) . urlencode(substr($str, $pos));

You're looking for the last occurrence of the slash sign. The part before it is ok so just copy that. And urlencode the rest.

Answer 2

First of all, here's why you should be using rawurlencode instead of urlencode.

To answer your question, instead of searching for a needle in a haystack and risking not encoding other possible special characters in your URL, just encode the whole thing and then fix the slashes (and colon).

<?php
$myurl = 'http://www.example.com/some_folder/some file [that] needs "to" be (encoded).zip';
$myurl = rawurlencode($myurl);
$myurl = str_replace('%3A',':',str_replace('%2F','/',$myurl));

Results in this:

http://www.example.com/some_folder/some%20file%20%5Bthat%5D%20needs%20%22to%22%20be%20%28encoded%29.zip