.query() Array-Parameters won't fill PHP's $_GET as intended

[Abromeit]

Current Version

This Code:

.query({ foo: "bar", hello: ["world", "mars"] });

Leads to this:

// -> http://example.com/bar/foo.xml?foo=bar&hello=world&hello=mars

I think that's kinda senseless. Cause this is what we see on the Server-Side:

$_GET = array(
  'foo' => 'bar',
  'hello' => 'mars'
);

I.e. "hello=world" is missing and no one can work with it.

Improved Version

Better:

// -> http://example.com/bar/foo.xml?foo=bar&hello[]=world&hello[]=mars

Results in this:

$_GET = array(
  'foo' => 'bar',
  'hello' => array(
    0 => 'world',
    1 => 'mars'
  )
);

[rodneyrehm]

The docs contain some demo code. The last lines are

// CAUTION: beware of arrays, the following are not quite the same
// If you're dealing with PHP, you probably want the latter…
uri.search("?foo=bar&bar=baz");
uri.search("?foo=bar[]&bar[]=baz");

you get that through

uri.search({ foo: "bar", "hello[]" : ["world", "mars"] });

I cannot make URI.js inject those [] for you, as PHP is one of the few languages using this scheme. most other languages deal with this quite differently.

[rodneyrehm]

That said, we could look into an optional "serialization callback" for query strings. Something that could convert {foo: ['bar', 'baz']} to foo[]=bar&foo[]=baz. Maybe even allow it to accept objects like {foo: {bar: 1, baz: 2}} and turn it into foo[bar]=1&foo[baz]=2.

[Abromeit]

..which would be cool if we talk about a ..hm.. 'static' callback, that users have to provide only once, if they like to.

Just to let you know - I really love what you did there. Your project could reduce my node.js codebase by at least 15% or so. I'm not that bad with Regex, but there's a lot of messy stuff out there and URL-canonicalization etc. is a pain when you have to do all that stuff over and over again. Thank you so much ♥

[rodneyrehm]

I'll look into the callbacks. It'll take me a couple of days though… heavy work load :(

To make things worse: we would also have to consider a callback for parseQuery() - something that is able to reverse whatever we plugged into buildQuery().

Thanks, for the kind words. I'm happy you like it :)

[rodneyrehm]

Here's a first shot at URI.hooks. Just checkout the php-querystring branch and give it a go.

[rodneyrehm]

You never got back to me with any feedback regarding the implementation. Have you had the chance to test this?

[alex94cp]

Mapping from javascript-like objects to url parameters is a solved problem. It's not only PHP who relies on it (see this). Please, could you consider making use of qs for building the query string? It is standard, well-tested (used by express),... If that's not an option, you could borrow its query parsing code.

If anything else, at least provide a sane behaviour (and I'd go for the more standard-widespread one) for URI(...).query({ foo: { bar: 'whatever' }}) . Currently, it gives "?foo=%5Bobject+Object%5D", which is no good.

[rodneyrehm]

We will find a solution that works for everyone in URI.js v2. Until then you're stuck working with qs yourself. Alternatively you can make URI.js use qs by overwriting the following functions:

var qs = require('qs');
URI.parseQuery = function(string) { return qs.parse(string); };
URI.buildQuery = function(data) { return qs.stringify(data); };

Simply popping qs into URI.js will make 39 tests fail, but most of those seem to be standard behavior that you don't want anyway, considering you explicitly asked for qs.