#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use URI::Escape;


my $url_parm = uri_escape 'http://www.whatzit.com?a=1&b=2';
my $url = "http:/www.xyzzy.com?url=$url_parm";
print $url, "\n";

##</code><code>##

my $url_parm = 'http://www.whatzit.com?a=1&b=2';
$url_parm =~ s/&/&amp;/sg;
my $url = "http:/www.xyzzy.com?url=$url_parm";