Use of special characters in filenames results in IE problems

Hi, I discovered a bug in my program for uploading files, which stores the filename in the database in order to create a link for it on the web page in the future. The bug is when the filename makes use of special characters (e.g. Oplæg). When I create a link to the file, the link works with Netscape. With IE however, it says that file is not found. I discovered that if I use the "encoded" version of the file name ("Opl%e6g") it works on both IE and Netscape. What function or code is used to convert to this format? Thanks! Floyd