diff --git a/Documentation/config.txt b/Documentation/config.txt
index 79d54e546..e75434b3e 100644
--- a/Documentation/config.txt
+++ b/Documentation/config.txt
@@ -1734,6 +1734,15 @@ status.submodulesummary::
 	summary of commits for modified submodules will be shown (see
 	--summary-limit option of linkgit:git-submodule[1]).
 
+submodule.<name>.path::
+submodule.<name>.url::
+submodule.<name>.update::
+	The path within this project, URL, and the updating strategy
+	for a submodule.  These variables are initially populated
+	by 'git submodule init'; edit them to override the
+	URL and other values found in the `.gitmodules` file.  See
+	linkgit:git-submodule[1] and linkgit:gitmodules[5] for details.
+
 tar.umask::
 	This variable can be used to restrict the permission bits of
 	tar archive entries.  The default is 0002, which turns off the
diff --git a/Documentation/gitmodules.txt b/Documentation/gitmodules.txt
index 5daf750d1..72a13d18e 100644
--- a/Documentation/gitmodules.txt
+++ b/Documentation/gitmodules.txt
@@ -29,6 +29,9 @@ submodule.<name>.path::
 
 submodule.<name>.url::
 	Defines an url from where the submodule repository can be cloned.
+	This may be either an absolute URL ready to be passed to
+	linkgit:git-clone[1] or (if it begins with ./ or ../) a location
+	relative to the superproject's origin repository.
 
 submodule.<name>.update::
 	Defines what to do when the submodule is updated by the superproject.
diff --git a/gitweb/gitweb.perl b/gitweb/gitweb.perl
index 1f611d22d..cedc35731 100755
--- a/gitweb/gitweb.perl
+++ b/gitweb/gitweb.perl
@@ -1327,8 +1327,7 @@ sub esc_param {
 sub esc_url {
 	my $str = shift;
 	return undef unless defined $str;
-	$str =~ s/([^A-Za-z0-9\-_.~();\/;?:@&=])/sprintf("%%%02X", ord($1))/eg;
-	$str =~ s/\+/%2B/g;
+	$str =~ s/([^A-Za-z0-9\-_.~();\/;?:@&= ]+)/CGI::escape($1)/eg;
 	$str =~ s/ /\+/g;
 	return $str;
 }