How do I URl encode something in Node.js?

I want to URL encode this:

SELECT name FROM user WHERE uid = me() 

Do I have to download a module for this? I already have the request module.

You can use JavaScript's encodeURIComponent:

encodeURIComponent('select * from table where i()')

giving

'select%20*%20from%20table%20where%20i()'

The built-in module querystring is what you're looking for:

var querystring = require("querystring");
var result = querystring.stringify({query: "SELECT name FROM user WHERE uid = me()"});
console.log(result);
#prints 'query=SELECT%20name%20FROM%20user%20WHERE%20uid%20%3D%20me()'

Use the escape function of querystring. It generates a URL safe string.

var escaped_str = require('querystring').escape('Photo on 30-11-12 at 8.09 AM #2.jpg');
console.log(escaped_str);
// prints 'Photo%20on%2030-11-12%20at%208.09%20AM%20%232.jpg'

Note that URI encoding is good for the query part, it's not good for the domain. The domain gets encoded using punycode. You need a library like URI.js to convert between a URI and IRI (Internationalized Resource Identifier).

This is correct if you plan on using the string later as a query string:

> encodeURIComponent("http://examplé.org/rosé?rosé=rosé")
'http%3A%2F%2Fexampl%C3%A9.org%2Fros%C3%A9%3Fros%C3%A9%3Dros%C3%A9'

If you don't want ASCII characters like /, : and ? to be escaped, use encodeURI instead:

> encodeURI("http://examplé.org/rosé?rosé=rosé")
'http://exampl%C3%A9.org/ros%C3%A9?ros%C3%A9=ros%C3%A9'

However, for other use-cases, you might need uri-js instead:

> var URI = require("uri-js");
undefined
> URI.serialize(URI.parse("http://examplé.org/rosé?rosé=rosé"))
'http://xn--exampl-gva.org/ros%C3%A9?ros%C3%A9=ros%C3%A9'

encodeURIComponent(string) will do it:

encodeURIComponent("Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;--")
//>> "Robert')%3B%20DROP%20TABLE%20Students%3B--"

Passing SQL around in a query string might not be a good plan though,

see this one