simple-query-string

Fast and simple way to parse and stringify URL query strings.

Utility javascript methods to encode and decode query string parameters with extreme performance and low memory usage.

Installation

NPM

$ npm install simple-query-string --save

Bower

$ bower install simple-query-string

Download

Browser - CDN

<script src="https://cdn.rawgit.com/khalidsalomao/simple-query-string/22cc5bbe/src/simplequerystring.min.js"></script>

Features

Query String Decoding

#### fast

Several benchmarks are run at each release to ensure maximum performance.

#### query string parsing

simpleQueryString.parse("key=val&param=1")

#### url with query string detection

There is no need to use url.split('?')[1] or any other code, just put the entire string!
```
simpleQueryString.parse("http://example.org/test/?key=val&param=1")
```
#### location.hash support
```
simpleQueryString.parse(location.hash)
```

#### location.search support

simpleQueryString.parse(location.search)

#### array detection

simpleQueryString.parse("myarr=1&myarr=2&myarr=3&myarr=4") // myarr: [1,2,3,4]

#### anchor detection

simpleQueryString.parse("http://example.org/test/?key=val&param=1#anchor") // #anchor will be ignored

#### node.js module

var qs = require('simple-query-string');
 
var parsed = qs.parse("key=val&param=1");
 
console.log(parsed["key"]);
console.log(parsed["param"]);

#### browser

<script src="https://cdn.rawgit.com/khalidsalomao/simple-query-string/22cc5bbe/src/simplequerystring.min.js"></script>
<script>
    var parsed = simpleQueryString.parse('key=val&param=1');
 
    console.log(parsed["key"]);
</script>

#### AMD module

require(['simple-query-string'], function(qs){
    var p = qs.parse('key=val&param=1');
    console.log(p);
});

#### for..in safe

Safe to be used in a for in loop. The object is created with Object.create(null).

var dic = simpleQueryString.parse("http://example.org/?p1=val&p2=true&p3=3&p4=str");
for (var k in dic) {
    console.log(dic[k]);
}

#### safely deals with invalid/empty input

simpleQueryString.parse(null) // equals to {}

#### Custom delimiter

In some cases, you may want to use another separator instead of ampersand. Example using semicolon (';') as separator:
```
simpleQueryString.parse('p1=a;p2=1', ';') // equals to '{ p1:'a', p2: 1}'
```

Query String Encoding

#### fast

Several benchmarks are run at each release to ensure maximum performance.

#### properties detection

simpleQueryString.stringify({ key: "val", param: 1 })
//=> 'key=val&param=1'

#### type detection

simpleQueryString.stringify({ p: 1, p2: true, p3: false }) // equals to 'p=1&p2=true&p3=false'

#### array encoding

simpleQueryString.stringify({ myarr: [1,2,3,4] }) // equals to 'myarr=1&myarr=2&myarr=3&myarr=4'

#### node.js module

var qs = require('simple-query-string');
 
var str = qs.stringify({ param: 1, p2: true, p3: false });
 
console.log(str); // equals to 'param=1&p2=true&p3=false'

#### browser

<script src="https://cdn.rawgit.com/khalidsalomao/simple-query-string/22cc5bbe/src/simplequerystring.min.js"></script>
<script>
    var str = simpleQueryString.stringify({ param: 1, p2: true, p3: false });
 
    console.log(str);
</script>

#### AMD module

require(['simple-query-string'], function(qs){
    var str = qs.stringify({ param: 1, p2: true, p3: false });
    console.log(str);
});

#### safely ignore functions and prototype properties

simpleQueryString.stringify({ p1: function(){ return 0; }, p2: 1 }) // equals to 'p2=1'

#### safely deals with invalid/empty input

simpleQueryString.stringify(null) // equals to ''

#### Custom delimiter

In some cases, you may want to use another separator instead of ampersand. Example using semicolon (';') as separator:
```
simpleQueryString.stringify({ p1: 'a', p2: 1 }, ';') // equals to 'p1=a;p2=1'
```

Getting Started

Decode example:

var obj = simpleQueryString.parse("http://example.org/test/?key=val&param=1");
 
// obj["key"] === "val"
 
// obj["param"] === "1"

Encode example:

var p = {
    key1: true,
    key2: [0, 1, 2],
    key3: "string",
    key4: 4321
};
 
var qStr = simpleQueryString.stringify(p);

How to Test

Node.js

Install dependencies

$ npm install mocha -g

Run tests in node.js

Use npm to run the test script 'spec/simplequerystring-test.js'

$ npm test

Run tests in any browser

Run the tests by opening ./spec/testpage.html.

Query string references

Some documentation for future reference.

Wikipedia on Query string structure

The query string is composed of a series of field-value pairs.

Within each pair, the field name and value are separated by an equals sign, '='.

The series of pairs is separated by the ampersand, '&' (or semicolon, ';' for URLs embedded in HTML and not generated by a <form>...</form>; see below).

W3C semicolon recommendation

W3C - Ampersands in URI attribute values

We recommend that HTTP server implementors, and in particular, CGI implementors support the use of ";" in place of "&" to save authors the trouble of escaping "&" characters in this manner.

RFC 3986 on Query component

RFC 3986

Some relevant parts of the documentation for future reference.

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986#section-3.4

The query component is indicated by the first question mark ("?") character and terminated by a number sign ("#") character or by the end of the URI

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986#section-4.2

relative-ref = relative-part [ "?" query ] [ "#" fragment ]