gistfile1.py

# Because urllib's doesn't like multibyte unicode.
def escapeurl(url):
    safe = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789_-'
    output = ''
    for char in url:
        if char in safe:
            output += char
        else:
            code = hex(ord(char))[2:]
            while len(code) > 0:
                if len(code) == 1:
                    code = '0' + code
                output += '%' + code[0:2]
                code = code[2:]
    return output