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I'm trying to GET the following URL in Delphi using TIdHTTO but it fails: 

https://api.sketchengine.eu/bonito/run.cgi/wsketch?lemma=上海&username=agofpos&api_key=ce39ab3f07544e759b068338ac1974e2&corpname=preloaded/zhtenten17_simplified_stf2&format=json

Using POSTMAN is OK, though.

Here is my code:

url := 'https://api.sketchengine.eu/bonito/run.cgi/wsketch?lemma=上海&username=agofpos&api_key=ce39ab3f07544e759b068338ac1974e2&corpname=preloaded/zhtenten17_simplified_stf2&format=json';
memoResult.Text := idHttp.Get(url);

Do we need special handling when dealing with non-English characters during GET? If so, how?

I'm using Delphi 10.2, if that helps.

Remy Lebeau
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1 Answers1

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URLs do not allow non-ASCII characters (IRIs do, but those are not widely in use yet). In a URL, you must url-encode any non-ASCII characters (and other reserved) characters, such as with Indy's TIdURI class, eg:

uses
  ..., IdURI;

url := 'https://api.sketchengine.eu/bonito/run.cgi/wsketch?lemma=' + TIdURI.ParamsEncode('上海') + '&username=agofpos&api_key=ce39ab3f07544e759b068338ac1974e2&corpname=preloaded/zhtenten17_simplified_stf2&format=json';
memoResult.Text := idHttp.Get(url);

This will encode the Chinese characters to UTF-8 and then encode those bytes in %HH format, eg:

https://api.sketchengine.eu/bonito/run.cgi/wsketch?lemma=%E4%B8%8A%E6%B5%B7&username=agofpos&api_key=ce39ab3f07544e759b068338ac1974e2&corpname=preloaded/zhtenten17_simplified_stf2&format=json

Notice how the 上海 became %E4%B8%8A%E6%B5%B7.

Web browsers, POSTMAN, etc handle this internally for you. You can confirm this by looking at the raw HTTP request that is actually being transmitted.

Remy Lebeau
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