Introduction:

URL decoding is a fundamental aspect of web development, allowing developers to convert encoded strings back to their original form. In C#, the process of converting URL-decoded strings to normal strings is straightforward, and this article will guide you through the steps with a practical program and examples.

Understanding URL Decoding:

URL decoding is essential when dealing with data received from URLs. Often, characters in a URL are encoded to ensure safe transmission. For instance, spaces are encoded as '%20', and special characters are represented by their hexadecimal ASCII values. To retrieve the original string, we need to decode these encoded characters.

using System;
using System.Web;

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        // URL-encoded string
        string encodedString = "Hello%20World%21";

        // URL decoding using HttpUtility.UrlDecode
        string decodedString = HttpUtility.UrlDecode(encodedString);

        // Displaying the results
        Console.WriteLine("Encoded String: " + encodedString);
        Console.WriteLine("Decoded String: " + decodedString);
    }
}

In this program, we use the HttpUtility.UrlDecode method from the System.Web namespace to decode the URL-encoded string. The encodedString variable holds the URL-encoded string, and the decodedString variable stores the result after decoding.

Output:

Encoded String: Hello%20World%21
Decoded String: Hello World!

The output demonstrates the successful conversion of the URL-encoded string "Hello%20World%21" back to its original form, "Hello World!".

Conclusion:

In conclusion, decoding URL-encoded strings in C# is a simple yet crucial skill for web developers. The provided program, using the HttpUtility.UrlDecode method, illustrates the ease with which you can convert encoded strings back to their original form.