What is the purpose of using urlencode and urldecode in PHP when handling search queries in URLs?

When handling search queries in URLs in PHP, it is important to use urlencode() to encode the search query before appending it to the URL. This ensures that special characters in the search query are properly encoded and do not break the URL structure. When retrieving the search query from the URL, urldecode() should be used to decode the encoded search query back to its original form for processing. 

// Encoding the search query before appending it to the URL
$search_query = "example search query";
$encoded_query = urlencode($search_query);
$url = "http://example.com/search.php?q=" . $encoded_query;

// Retrieving and decoding the search query from the URL
$decoded_query = urldecode($_GET['q']);
echo $decoded_query;

Keywords

urlencode urldecode PHP search queries URLs

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