encoding – Url decode UTF-8 in Python

encoding – Url decode UTF-8 in Python

The data is UTF-8 encoded bytes escaped with URL quoting, so you want to decode, with urllib.parse.unquote(), which handles decoding from percent-encoded data to UTF-8 bytes and then to text, transparently:

from urllib.parse import unquote

url = unquote(url)

Demo:

>>> from urllib.parse import unquote
>>> url = example.com?title=%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%8F+%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%89%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B0
>>> unquote(url)
example.com?title=правовая+защита

The Python 2 equivalent is urllib.unquote(), but this returns a bytestring, so youd have to decode manually:

from urllib import unquote

url = unquote(url).decode(utf8)

If you are using Python 3, you can use urllib.parse

url = example.com?title=%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%8F+%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%89%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B0

import urllib.parse
urllib.parse.unquote(url)

gives:

example.com?title=правовая+защита

encoding – Url decode UTF-8 in Python

You can achieve an expected result with requests library as well:

import requests

url = http://www.mywebsite.org/Data%20Set.zip

print(fBefore: {url})
print(fAfter:  {requests.utils.unquote(url)})

Output:

$ python3 test_url_unquote.py

Before: http://www.mywebsite.org/Data%20Set.zip
After:  http://www.mywebsite.org/Data Set.zip

Might be handy if you are already using requests, without using another library for this job.