Strange URI characters "%f0%9f%8c %b4%f0%9f%9a %8c%f0%9f%90"

Question

I was trying to figure out what was the characters encoded in this url: http://whatyouth.com/9236/roadtripppp-%f0%9f%8c-%b4%f0%9f%9a-%8c%f0%9f%90-roadtrip-throwback-again-sorry-missingsummer-palmtrees-rememberwhatyouth/

When I use the javascript function decodeURI, I got this error :

decodeURI("http://whatyouth.com/9236/roadtripppp-%f0%9f%8c-%b4%f0%9f%9a-%8c%f0%9f%90-roadtrip-throwback-again-sorry-missingsummer-palmtrees-rememberwhatyouth/")
> URIError: URI malformed

Does someone know what these characters are ?

%f0%9f%8c
%b4%f0%9f%9a
%8c%f0%9f%90

Those encoded bytes are not in UTF-8, it may be some other encoding. No idea which one it is though. — Karol S, Dec 17 '14 at 11:56
another strange thing with this : try this : `var url = 'http://whatyouth.com/9236/roadtripppp-%f0%9f%8c-%b4%f0%9f%9a-%8c%f0%9f%90-roadtrip-throwback-again-sorry-missingsummer-palmtrees-rememberwhatyouth/'; console.log(url);` => bug in chrome console. — Apolo, Dec 17 '14 at 13:28

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:49

I suppose that is a Windows-1252 encoding : ASCII Encoding Reference (W3Schools) (Sorry for that W3Schools link... not my favourite website)

I replaced every '%' with '\x' in my url and I used functions in this answer : https://stackoverflow.com/a/4129920/3484498

var url = 'http://whatyouth.com/9236/roadtripppp-\xf0\x9f\x8c-\xb4\xf0\x9f\x9a-\x8c\xf0\x9f\x90-roadt‌rip-throwback-again-sorry-missingsummer-palmtrees-rememberwhatyouth/';

decodeBytes(url,'cp1252');
> "http://whatyouth.com/9236/roadtripppp-ðŸŒ-´ðŸš-ŒðŸ�-roadtrip-throwback-again-sorry-missingsummer-palmtrees-rememberwhatyouth/"

decodeBytes(url,'cp1251');
> "http://whatyouth.com/9236/roadtripppp-рџЊ-ґрџљ-Њрџђ-roadtrip-throwback-again-sorry-missingsummer-palmtrees-rememberwhatyouth/"

Strange URI characters "%f0%9f%8c %b4%f0%9f%9a %8c%f0%9f%90"

1 Answers1