A URL Template is a way to specify a URL that includes parameters that must be substituted before the URL is resolved. The syntax is usually to enclose the parameter in Braces ({example}). The convention is for a parameter to not be Percent encoded unless it follows a Question Mark

Question mark

The question mark , is a punctuation mark that replaces the full stop at the end of an interrogative sentence in English and many other languages. The question mark is not used for indirect questions...

 (?).

Examples

• http://example.com/people/{firstName}-{lastName}/SSN
• http://example.com/query?firstName={firstName}&lastName={lastName}

If we were building these urls for Björk

Björk

Björk Guðmundsdóttir , known as Björk , is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres, such as rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk...

with firstName=Björk and lastName=Guðmundsdóttir they would be:

• http://example.com/people/Björk-Guðmundsdóttir/SSN
• http://example.com/query?firstName=Bj%c3%b6rk&lastName=Gu%c3%b0mundsd%c3%b3ttir

Code

In python, if you have the variable name that you want to put into the string url, you can simply do this:


import urllib2

while "{name}" in url :
if "?" in url and url.find("?") < url.find("{name}") :
url = url.replace("{name}", urllib2.quote(name), 1)
else :
url = url.replace("{name}", name, 1)


Note: this will go into an infinite loop if name

"{name}" or other such corner cases.

External links

• URI templates project
• URI Template Internet Draft Spec