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URL Hospital
We all know the frustration of receiving an URL which just won't open. Paste it, retype it, click again, try microwaving it too! but no, it still won't open. One possible reason why the URL won't open may be that it has suffered truncation. So, the first step in trying to heal a broken URL is to see how much of it we can get. Make sure you have all the characters that you can get. Say the original URL was http://www.docstoc.com/docs/48838395/CAT-CARECaring- for-Furry-Mouse-Traps-aka-House-Cats but what you have now is http://www.docstoc.com/docs/48838395/CAT-CARE-Caring-for-Furry-Mouse and if it works no problem. If it doesn't the first attempt should be climbing up the directory tree. Try http://www.docstoc.com/docs/48838395/ and if doesn't work or doesn't list the item you want then http://www.docstoc.com/docs/ and finally http://www.docstoc.com/ Actually in this example the first three URLs of this paragraph all work! You might say that it's a rather simple and easily curable situation. It is.
But here is one more URL http://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%25E0%25A6%25AA%25E0%25A7%258D%25E0%25A6%25B0%25E0%25A6%25BF%25E0%25A6%25AF%25E0%25A6%25BC%25E0%25A6%2599%25E0%25A7%258D%25E0%25A6%2595%25E0%25A6%25BE_%25E0%25A6%25AC%25E0%25A6%25A2%25E0%25A6%25B0%25E0%25A6%25BE This is exactly the kind of URL folks feel inclined to microwave if they could. However this URL can be completely recovered. As geeks will tell you URLs sometimes need to be encoded or decoded or both in a program or script. Notice the literal “%25” occurring again and again. If you find even one occurrence of it then your URL is not valid. In fact it is encoded, but while encoded URLs generally work, the presence of at least one “%25” means that the URL has almost certainly been encoded twice! All you have to do to make it work is point your browser to http://unescape.hereweb.com, hit the clear all button, paste your input and hit the decode button. The output box will show your URL.
This isn't panacea of course. If your URL was originally truncated as earlier mentioned or if it's encoded using a deprecated encoding scheme or one not ideal for Internet addresses then it may still be unrecoverable. But in most cases you will find that your overencoded URL is back in shape. But remember that the “%” sign is not your enemy. It is the “%25” literal which indicates the problem. Once encoded URLs work perfectly well. That is why they are encoded. The application at http://unescape.hereweb.com just doesn't give up until it has decoded the input as many times as possible. Also, to prevent the same problem, it doesn't let you encode an URL which is already encoded. Thus it is also ideal for encoding local language URLs. If you are in doubt as to whether your URL is already encoded just try encoding it again. Here, one is the limit. This document is in the public domain.
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