Encoding URLs in APIs: Avoid Broken Requests
Improperly encoded URLs cause broken API calls. Learn when and how to encode URL segments vs query parameters, and how to debug 400 errors from bad encoding.
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Tags: encoding, api, url
Encoding URLs in APIs: Avoiding Broken Requests and 400 Errors A 400 Bad Request with no meaningful error message. A search that returns zero results when the database has matching records. A redirect that fails silently. URL encoding bugs in API calls have a way of being invisible until they surface in production. This post covers the specific patterns that cause these bugs and how to fix them. --- Why API URL Encoding Bugs Are Hard to Spot URL encoding errors often produce requests that are syntactically valid but semantically wrong. The server receives a request, parses it, finds no matching data, and returns 200 OK with an empty result — or a 400 because it can't parse a malformed parameter. The original value is gone; you only see the symptom. The root causes fall into four…
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