use strict; use URI::Escape; while (my $string = ) { chomp $string; if ($string eq uri_unescape($string)) { print "'$string' was not URI-encoded.\n"; } else { print "'$string' was URI-encoded.\n"; } } __DATA__ A%20horse%2C%20a%20horse!%20My%20kingdom%20for%20a%20horse! A plain string