Java URLEncode

After working on an android project for Google's G1 phone I came across a problem using the java.net.URLEncoder class whereby it was not correctly encoding 3 values in conformance to the RFC 3986. The function URLEncoder.encode(s, enc) does not encode *, ~ or + (asterisk, tilde and plus) which was causing trouble when accessing particularly picky web services with strict definitions on content encoding. So with a bit of botchery you can make the string compliant by encoding them seperately using java Strings built in replace method. The example below shows a bare bones example of encoding a value.

String value = "beans+pies*with~fries"; // Mind the awful scentence
String encoded = URLEncoder.encode(value, "UTF-8");
encoded = encoded.replace("*", "%2A");
encoded = encoded.replace("~", "%7E");
encoded = encoded.replace("+", "%20");
// The output is "beans%20pies%2Awith%7Efries" all done!