Perform URL Encoding in a Text String

Question

I need to be able to convert some characters ("/", ":", "@", " ") in a few text strings (SentDate, SentTime, EmailAddress) so that the strings can be incorporated into a URL that will be passed to FileMaker Pro Unlimited.
SentDate is currently "2/22/2006" but I need to replace the "/" with "%2F" to get "2%2F22%2F2006"
SentTime is currently "12:56:32 PM" but I need to replace the ":" with "%3A" and the " " with "%20" to get "12%3A56%3A32%3A%20PM"
EmailAddress is in the format "[email protected]" but I need to replace "@" with "%40" to get "first%40last.com".
I've tried using ACME Script Widgets' ACME Replace command but it only seems to work with the first replace; it hangs my script on subsequent replaces.
Does anyone have a handler to substitute characters in a string with a group of characters like this? It's driving me nuts and I can't figure it out...
Thanks in advance,
Robert

Answer 1

Hi Robert.
try this
set {SentDate, SentTime, EmailAddress} to {"2/22/2006", "12:56:32 PM", "[email protected]"}
set SentDate to findAndReplace("/", "%2F", SentDate)
set SentTime to findAndReplace(":", "%3A", SentTime)
set EmailAddress to findAndReplace("@", "%40", EmailAddress)
return {SentDate, SentTime, EmailAddress}
on findAndReplace(tofind, toreplace, TheString)
set {ditd, text item delimiters} to {text item delimiters, tofind}
set t to text items of TheString
set text item delimiters to toreplace
set t to t as string
if tofind is ":" then
set text item delimiters to " "
set t to text items of t
set text item delimiters to "%20"
set t to t as string
end if
set text item delimiters to ditd
return t
end findAndReplace