Special characters like ←, <, † and é are 'escaped' in HTML: they are written in a different (longer) form -or encoded- so that they can be interpreted by browsers in the correct way. For an overview of all the special characters in HTML, see the HTML character map.
For developers: PHP: htmlentities($text) • Python: xml.sax.saxutils.escape(text) • Ruby: coder.encode(string, :named) • Perl: encode_entities($text) • ASP: Server.HtmlEncode(Text) • Java: escapeHtml4(Text) •
htmlentities($text)
xml.sax.saxutils.escape(text)
coder.encode(string, :named)
encode_entities($text)
Server.HtmlEncode(Text)
escapeHtml4(Text)
Special characters like (, <, ' ' (space) and é are 'escaped' before passing as an URL parameter (what follows after the ? in an URL like search.php?text=risqu%C3%A9 ). For an overview of all the special characters in HTML, see the HTML character map.
search.php?text=risqu%C3%A9
For developers: PHP: urlencode($text) • Python: urllib.quote_plus(text) • Ruby: CGI.escape(string) • Perl: url_encode($text) • ASP: Server.URLEncode(Text) • Java: URLEncoder.encode(Text) •
urlencode($text)
urllib.quote_plus(text)
CGI.escape(string)
url_encode($text)
Server.URLEncode(Text)
URLEncoder.encode(Text)
