Why the MalformedURLException?

[Thomas Kennedy]

Can anyone tell me why I get a MalformedURLException -- see line 05 below -- when I run this code? I am using JDK 1.3. (I know it's ancient; using a newer jdk is not an option.)

java.net.MalformedURLException: no protocol: http%3A%2F%2Fdevelopers.sun.com%2Frss%2Fsdn_features.xml

class MyDefaultHandler extends DefaultHandler {
	public void go() throws SAXException, IOException, ParserConfigurationException{
		java.net.URL url;
		String p = URLEncoder.encode("http://developers.sun.com/rss/sdn_features.xml");
		url = new java.net.URL(p); <-- exception here
		java.io.InputStreamReader reader = new java.io.InputStreamReader(url.openStream());
		InputSource isource = new InputSource(reader);
		
		...

	}

[Ulf Dittmer]

You shouldn't encode the URL before creating the URL instance.