Accessing URL encoded querystring vars

  • Thread starter Thread starter C.
  • Start date Start date
C

C.

I should know this already, but I'm exhausted and I was out of coffee
this morning :)

A have a pager that allows me to page through a dataset, and I print
off some links at the bottom so users can jump between pages.

When I build the links, I URL encode the hrefs so I get XHTML-
compliant pages:

StringBuilder queryString = new StringBuilder();
queryString.Append("adminID=" + adminID);
queryString.Append("&userPage=" + userPage);
return Server.URLEncode(String.Format("Home.aspx?{0}",
queryString.ToString()));

This produces: <a href="/Home.aspx%3fadminID%3d1%26userPage%3d2">2</a>

When I click that link, I get a terse Bad Request message (no
exception, no stack trace, just "Bad Request")

I tried HTML Encoding the URL, so I end up with:
<a href="/Home.aspx?adminID=1&amp;userPage=2>2</a>

Unfortunately, when the link is clicked, the querystring variables is
not retrieved as expected.

if (!Int32.TryParse(Request.QueryString["userPage"], out userPage))
{
//This part I really don't want to run, but I do when I am
parsing a URL Encoded querystring
userPage = 1
}

Looking at the Querystring object, the key of interest is
"amp;userPage", not "userPage" as expected. I presume I need to run
decode the key, but I'm kinda flummoxed as to how to do that.

I could assign the Querystring to a NameValueCollection, tearing out
the offending "amp;" prefix as I do, but that doesn't seem especially
elegant. Is there a cleaner way to achieve what i want?

Cheers,

C.
 
Sorry, I didn't double encode my html-encoded example so it won't
display correctly in browsers. After I HTML encode my link, it looks
like: <a href="/Home.aspx?adminID=1&amp;amp;userPage=2>2</a>
 
I should know this already, but I'm exhausted and I was out of coffee
this morning :)

A have a pager that allows me to page through a dataset, and I print
off some links at the bottom so users can jump between pages.

When I build the links, I URL encode the hrefs so I get XHTML-
compliant pages:

StringBuilder queryString = new StringBuilder();
queryString.Append("adminID=" + adminID);
queryString.Append("&userPage=" + userPage);
return Server.URLEncode(String.Format("Home.aspx?{0}",
queryString.ToString()));

This produces: <a href="/Home.aspx%3fadminID%3d1%26userPage%3d2">2</a>

When I click that link, I get a terse Bad Request message (no
exception, no stack trace, just "Bad Request")

I tried HTML Encoding the URL, so I end up with:
<a href="/Home.aspx?adminID=1&userPage=2>2</a>

Unfortunately, when the link is clicked, the querystring variables is
not retrieved as expected.

if (!Int32.TryParse(Request.QueryString["userPage"], out userPage))
        {
            //This part I really don't want to run, but I do when I am
parsing a URL Encoded querystring
            userPage = 1
        }

Looking at the Querystring object, the key of interest is
"amp;userPage", not "userPage" as expected. I presume I need to run
decode the key, but I'm kinda flummoxed as to how to do that.

I could assign the Querystring to a NameValueCollection, tearing out
the offending "amp;" prefix as I do, but that doesn't seem especially
elegant. Is there a cleaner way to achieve what i want?

Cheers,

C.
Click to expand...

Request.QueryString doesn't use XML encoding, it uses URL encoding. So
you either need to need to get QueryString.ToString() and parse it or
you can also try to replace '&' (&amp;) in the url by %26
 
C. said:
I should know this already, but I'm exhausted and I was out of coffee
this morning :)

A have a pager that allows me to page through a dataset, and I print
off some links at the bottom so users can jump between pages.

When I build the links, I URL encode the hrefs so I get XHTML-
compliant pages:

StringBuilder queryString = new StringBuilder();
queryString.Append("adminID=" + adminID);
queryString.Append("&userPage=" + userPage);
return Server.URLEncode(String.Format("Home.aspx?{0}",
queryString.ToString()));
Click to expand...

You need to UrlEncode the values of the parameters and HtmlEncode the other
bits, so instead of using "&" for additional parameters, use "&amp;":

StringBuilder queryString = new StringBuilder();
queryString.Append("adminID=" + Server.UrlEncode(adminID));
queryString.Append("&amp;userPage=" + Server.UrlEncode(userPage) );
return String.Format("Home.aspx?{0}",queryString.ToString());

or it's probably more obvious as one line:

return String.Format("Home.aspx?adminID={0}&amp;userPage={2}",
Server.UrlEncode(adminID), Server.UrlEncode(userPage))
 
Andrew said:
or it's probably more obvious as one line:

return String.Format("Home.aspx?adminID={0}&amp;userPage={2}",
Server.UrlEncode(adminID), Server.UrlEncode(userPage))
Click to expand...

Oops! {1}, not {2}.
 
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