swift-whatwg-url

WHATWG URL Living Standard implementation in Swift.

Overview

This package implements the WHATWG URL Living Standard, providing:

• WHATWG URL: Full URL parsing, serialization, and manipulation (planned)
• WHATWG Form URL Encoded: Section 5 - application/x-www-form-urlencoded encoding and decoding

The WHATWG URL Standard defines the precise character set and encoding rules for URL form encoding, which differs from Foundation's URL encoding in key ways:

• Space encoding: WHATWG uses +, Foundation uses %20
• Character set: WHATWG only leaves alphanumeric + *-._ unencoded
• Specification compliance: Exact implementation of the WHATWG algorithm

Installation

Swift Package Manager

Add to your Package.swift:

dependencies: [
    .package(url: "https://github.com/swift-standards/swift-whatwg-url", from: "0.1.0")
]

Then add the dependency to your target:

.target(
    name: "YourTarget",
    dependencies: [
        // For full URL support (planned)
        .product(name: "WHATWG URL", package: "swift-whatwg-url"),

        // Or just for form URL encoding
        .product(name: "WHATWG Form URL Encoded", package: "swift-whatwg-url")
    ]
)

Usage

WHATWG Form URL Encoded

Serialize to application/x-www-form-urlencoded

import WHATWG_Form_URL_Encoded

let encoded = WHATWG_Form_URL_Encoded.serialize([
    ("name", "John Doe"),
    ("email", "john@example.com")
])
// Result: "name=John+Doe&email=john%40example.com"

Parse application/x-www-form-urlencoded

let pairs = WHATWG_Form_URL_Encoded.parse("name=John+Doe&email=john%40example.com")
// Result: [("name", "John Doe"), ("email", "john@example.com")]

Percent Encoding

let encoded = WHATWG_Form_URL_Encoded.PercentEncoding.encode("Hello World!", spaceAsPlus: true)
// Result: "Hello+World%21"

Percent Decoding

let decoded = WHATWG_Form_URL_Encoded.PercentEncoding.decode("Hello+World%21", plusAsSpace: true)
// Result: "Hello World!"

WHATWG Character Set

According to the WHATWG URL Standard, only the following characters are left unencoded:

• ASCII alphanumeric (a-z, A-Z, 0-9)
• Asterisk (*)
• Hyphen (-)
• Period (.)
• Underscore (_)

All other characters are percent-encoded. Space (0x20) is encoded as + when spaceAsPlus is true.

Difference from Foundation

Foundation's URLComponents and related APIs use a different encoding scheme:

// WHATWG (this package)
"Hello World!" → "Hello+World%21"

// Foundation
"Hello World!" → "Hello%20World!"  // Different space encoding

Additionally, Foundation's URL encoding is more permissive with special characters, while WHATWG strictly limits unencoded characters to the set above.

Reference

• WHATWG URL Living Standard
• Section 5: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

Requirements

• Swift 6.2+
• macOS 15.0+, iOS 18.0+, tvOS 18.0+, watchOS 11.0+

License

Apache 2.0