Problem Using accented French character in search REST call

Question

I'm running into a problem with the search REST API. When my refinement filter parameter contains a French character I get zero results.

For example this works:

https://www.example.com/sites/company/_api/search/query?querytext='*'&refinementfilters='TheCity:equals("Vancouver")'&sourceid='b09asdf0-05ea-4375-8asd-asdfasdfasdfasdf'&clienttype='ContentSearchRegular'

But this doesn't work:

https://www.example.com/sites/company/_api/search/query?querytext='*'&refinementfilters='TheCity:equals("Île-des-Soeurs")'&sourceid='b09asdf0-05ea-4375-8asd-asdfasdfasdfasdf'&clienttype='ContentSearchRegular'

Answer 1

You need to encode your query component. You can test it by running encodeURIComponent in a browser console or use any online tool like this one.
So you query should be:

https://www.example.com/sites/company/_api/search/query?querytext='*'&refinementfilters='TheCity:equals("%c3%8ele-des-Soeurs")'&sourceid='b09asdf0-05ea-4375-8asd-asdfasdfasdfasdf'&clienttype='ContentSearchRegular'