Rewrite query string parsing to avoid use parse_str

[alekitto]

I've encountered the same problems described in #756, so I've checked how PHP implemented the parse string filter and rewrote it in PHP to avoid using parse_str itself.

Spaces and dots are preserved in the resulting array keys. The behavior of the parser on case of unclosed bracket is retained too.

[deleugpn]

This is quite a complex change and somewhat a maintenance overhead for bref. I'll need some time before I can review this thoroughly.

It would be good to know how many people are having issues with this to help with prioritization.

[Cafeine42]

Hi,

We are having this problem with Api Platform too.

curl -X 'GET'
'https://xxxxxxx/api/v4/group_classes?page=1&activity.id=6'
-H 'accept: application/ld+json'

is handled with this query string :

"hydra:view": { "@id": "/api/v4/group_classes?activity_id=6", "@type": "hydra:PartialCollectionView" },

The usage of dot is a basic feature in Api Plaform : https://api-platform.com/docs/core/filters/#filtering-on-nested-properties

I am amazed that so few people have encountered the problem

[Cafeine42]

For more info, Api Platform have an implementation to handle this too : https://github.com/api-platform/core/blob/10827bb570c44cdee2c1bb7a307a8a18df9b4f00/src/Util/RequestParser.php#L50 Solution referenced in comments : https://stackoverflow.com/questions/68651/get-php-to-stop-replacing-characters-in-get-or-post-arrays/18209799#18209799

[mnapoli]

@Cafeine42 nice, that sounds interesting, especially knowing it's already used by API Platform at scale. And it looks "simple" too.

A PR with that implementation (with correct @author attribution) could be easier to merge probably.

[alekitto]

IMHO the "api platform" solution sounds hackish, is based on the same function that caused the original bug and is not really performant (~50% slower in my tests).

Could be "simpler" to see, but in an environment where every millisecond counts and it's billed, performance should be taken into consideration.

[mnapoli]

Thanks for all the effort! This has been fixed in #1437