How does rawurlencode() handle spaces differently compared to urlencode() in PHP, and why is this distinction important?

rawurlencode() encodes spaces as "%20" while urlencode() encodes spaces as "+". This distinction is important when dealing with URLs because some servers may not interpret the "+" symbol correctly as a space. To ensure compatibility and accuracy in URL encoding, it is recommended to use rawurlencode().

$url = 'https://www.example.com/page with space';
$encoded_url = rawurlencode($url);
echo $encoded_url;