Java EE (Java Enterprise Edition) General Discussion

Whats the best way to url encode input fields when processing form fields. Tried using this:
function replacechar(string,text,by) {
// Replaces text with by in string
var i = string.indexOf(text)
var newstr = ""
if ((!i) || (i == -1))
return string;
newstr = newstr + string.substr(0,i) + by
if (i+text.length < string.length)
newstr = newstr + replacechar(string.substr(i+text.length,string.length),text,by);
alert("test = " + newstr)
return newstr;
}
invoked by using this:
<%usertask=replacechar(usertask," ","%20")%>
as a java script function in my jsp but I get servlet errors. Should I create a class and access it using 'usebean' to do the conversion or is there a shortcut method I can use directly in my jsp. Thanks in advance.