I need to URL decode a string in a VBScript. The string may contain Unicode characters which are encoded as multiple bytes as per UTF-8. So for example "Paris%20%E2%86%92%20Z%C3%BCrich" would decode to "Paris → Zürich".
To do the job, I'm using a piece of code that looks like this:
Function URLDecode(str)
set list = CreateObject("System.Collections.ArrayList")
strLen = Len(str)
for i = 1 to strLen
sT = mid(str, i, 1)
if sT = "%" then
if i + 2 <= strLen then
list.Add cbyte("&H" & mid(str, i + 1, 2))
i = i + 2
end if
else
list.Add asc(sT)
end if
next
depth = 0
for each by in list.ToArray()
if by and &h80 then
if (by and &h40) = 0 then
if depth = 0 then Err.Raise 5
val = val * 2 ^ 6 + (by and &h3f)
depth = depth - 1
if depth = 0 then
sR = sR & chrw(val)
val = 0
end if
elseif (by and &h20) = 0 then
if depth > 0 then Err.Raise 5
val = by and &h1f
depth = 1
elseif (by and &h10) = 0 then
if depth > 0 then Err.Raise 5
val = by and &h0f
depth = 2
else
Err.Raise 5
end if
else
if depth > 0 then Err.Raise 5
sR = sR & chrw(by)
end if
next
if depth > 0 then Err.Raise 5
URLDecode = sR
End Function
This seems to be working well, but it looks exaggeratedly complex to me. In times of HTML5 and web standards, there must be a simpler way to get this done without a bunch of hand-made loops and conditions. Any suggestions?
