Encrypting URL inside PHP code

I'm trying to figure out the best method for encrypting or encoding a URL in my code, this is what it looks like:

$ProUpdateChecker=new PluginUpdateChecker('http://the-url-is-here.com/file.json',__FILE__,'plugin开发者_开发知识库slug');

I want users to not be able to see that URL. I'm not too worried about them being able to decrypt it, I just want a little bit of added security since mostly newbies will be using my script anyways.

What is the best method to accomplish this? I used ionCube to encode the entire code (not just the URL), but it broke some of the functionality.

You could just store the base64 encoded version of the URL in your scripts as a string, and everywhere you use it run it through base64 decode.

$url = base64_decode('VGhpcyBpcyBhbiBlbmNvZGVkIHN0cmluZw==');

Sort of a silly, poor man's option, but you said keep it away from noobs...

If you are just trying to make it so the URL isn't readable ASCII text, try Base64 Encoding: http://php.net/manual/en/function.base64-encode.php