rawurldecode

I am trying to use the rawurldecode() function to decode a variable that is begin passed from a different page through the url. The PHP manual doesnt say much for this function, but it does have quite a bit on the urldecode() function which says using urldecode on a $_GET variable wont produce the desired results. Is there another way to decode a url variable? Or maybe a better way to get a variable from one page to another so I can use it. The variable may contain all types of characters, but mainly a space(%20) is the biggest problem. If anyone has some kind of workaround for this please let me know. Thanks