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up vote 5 down vote favorite

This should simple task, but I can't seem to find a solution.

I have a basic string that is being passed through as a query string parameter like this one: This+is+a+message+with+spaces. I would like to decode that parameter using Javascript to This is a message with spaces, but I cannot seem to get it to decode.

I've tried decodeURI('This+is+a+message+with+spaces') but the result still contains the + signs.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

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1  
stackoverflow.com/questions/4292914/… –  locrizak Aug 20 '12 at 17:59
1  
The URL needs to be encoded to be decoded ;) –  davidbuzatto Aug 20 '12 at 18:02
1  
Locrizak, decodeURIComponent('This+is+a+message+with+spaces') still returns This+is+a+message+with+spaces. encodeURIComponent('This+is+a+message+with+spaces') returns This%2Bis%2Ba%2Bmessage%2Bwith%2Bspaces. I must be missing something because I'm not seeing how this is solving my problem. –  user852367 Aug 20 '12 at 18:02

3 Answers 3

up vote 7 down vote accepted

The plus sign is not encoded/decoded. To see the decode function working, you need to pass a encoded URI first. Take a look:

encodeURI( "http://www.foo.com/bar?foo=foo bar jar" )

Will generate: http://www.foo.com/bar?foo=foo%20bar%20jar, i.e., the encoded URI.

decodeURI( "http://www.foo.com/bar?foo=foo%20bar%20jar" )

Will generate: http://www.foo.com/bar?foo=foo bar jar, i.e., the decoded URI.

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up vote 5 down vote

Yes it is true that decodeURIComponent function doesn't convert + to space. So you have to replace the + using replace function.

Ideally the below solution works.

var str_name = 'This+is+a+message+with+spaces';
decodeURIComponent((str_name + '').replace(/\+/g, '%20'));
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up vote 4 down vote
Like it was pointed out already, decodeURI function doesn't convert + to space, but there are some things worth to realize here:
  • decodeURI is meant to be used for whole URI, i.e. it doesn't decode separators like ?, &, =, +, etc.
  • for decoding parameters decodeURIComponent should be used
    (worth to have a look at: What is the difference between decodeURIComponent and decodeURI? )
  • string that you are trying to decode might actually contain + encoded as %2B, thus you should not replace + after the conversion since you might lost + signs that you actually want there, e.g. something?num=%2B632+905+123+4567 should become:
    something?num=+632 905 123 4567
    since you are probably going to extract the number: +632 905 123 4567

So the correct way to do this is:

var str = 'something?num=%2B632+905+123+4567';
decodeURIComponent( str.replace(/\+/g, '%20') );
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