Redirect URL with special characters

[nakita_dog]

How can I redirect a URL with the following special characters:

http://www.example.com/%C2%A0

I have tried the following in the .htaccess file:

Redirect /%C2%A0 /

[lucy24]

... and then what?

Wait. Never mind. Did you say %A0 ? ? ?

That's the non-breaking space. Either A-circumflex + nbsp, or nbsp by itself, depending on what file encoding you're in.

What the bleepity bleep is a non-breaking space doing in your URL in the first place? Please say you're talking about a "salvage redirect" necessitated by a typo that you've now fixed.

Does your existing htaccess contain any rules using mod_alias (Redirect by that name), mod_rewrite (RewriteRule), or both? This will determine which module you use for making your Redirect. It can be done either way.

OK, now then... What happens with

Redirect /%C2%A0 /

? The syntax isn't ideal, but it should work. That's assuming the %C2%A0 has landed on your server in that form instead of in " " decoded form.

What's with this sudden flurry of servers refusing to decode percent-encoded URLs? Do they think we have nothing better to do than write code?

[nakita_dog]

In the end I solved the problem through a custom 404 error page. I basically did the following:

<?php
$url = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];

if (false !== strpos($url,'%C2%A0')) {
//echo "Here1 = ".$url;
Header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
Header("Location: http://www.example.com");
} else {
header('HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found');
echo "<h1>404 Not Found</h1>";
echo "The page that you have requested could not be found.<br>";
echo "<a href='http://www.example.com'>http://www.example.com</a>";
exit();
}

?>

[g1smd]

When you redirect to the root page of a site, the correct URL ends with a trailing slash: www.example.com/

Your RewriteRule might have worked if you had escaped the percent sign. Don't use Redirect, use a RewriteRule configured as a redirect.