GET request with array params

[Eric Seidel]

Hi, I'm playing around with Typhoeus to see if I can use it to interface with Fluidinfo. One of the most common requests for me involves passing multiple tags that I want returned as URL params, i.e. http://fluiddb.fluidinfo.com/values?query=has+gridaphobe%2Femployer&tag=gridaphobe%2Fcompany&tag=gridaphobe%2Ftitle. To accomplish this I tried the following line:

Typhoeus::Request.get("http://fluiddb.fluidinfo.com/values", :params => {:query => "has gridaphobe/employer", :tag => ["gridaphobe/company", "gridaphobe/title"]})

The problem is that Typhoeus adds "[]" (or "%5B%5D" after url-encoding), to "tag" in the URL params, so I get "&tag%5B%5D=gridaphobe%2Fcompany&tag%5B%5D=gridaphobe%2Ftitle" instead. Is there a way to prevent this?

Thanks,

Eric

[David Balatero]

Hey Eric,

Currently there is no way to prevent this from happening. I'm a little unclear on the HTTP spec for array parameters. Are both these forms accepted/common?

tags=ok&tags=yes

tags[]=ok&tags[]=yes

Thanks!
David

[Eric Seidel]

Hey David,

only the first form is accepted. I'm honestly not sure why typhoeus inserts the [].. It's smart enough to realize that the params are an array and repeat "tags" instead of just appending each item in the array like some other gems :/

Thanks,

Eric

[Evan Stoner]

I think the issue is that both are valid in HTTP, but not all web services accept both forms.

As far as I can tell, the W3C recommendation is that one key can be repeated multiple times with multiple values, with no brackets required or expected.  There's a newer (non-W3C? grassroots?) convention that signifies an array by adding brackets to the key.

Since the brackets are allowed over HTTP but don't normally carry any special meaning, some web services don't understand the newer array notation, interpret the [] as being literally part of the key string, and break.

Put another way, the bracket notation is arguably nonstandard, although obviously common.

Thanks,

Evan

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[Eric Seidel]

Given that the bracket notation is not part of the W3C recommendations, I would suggest to either remove it or add some kind of flag to enable/disable it. Am I correct to assume that the services that do use the bracket notation will also recognize array params without the brackets?

Eric

[David Balatero]

On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 8:52 AM, Eric Seidel <grida...@gmail.com> wrote:

Given that the bracket notation is not part of the W3C recommendations, I would suggest to either remove it or add some kind of flag to enable/disable it.

That would be good.

 

Am I correct to assume that the services that do use the bracket notation will also recognize array params without the brackets?

I'm not quite sure about that. If not, though, it seems like you could still do:

{ "a[]" => [1, 2, 3] }

And that would work for the services that only take brackets?

 

Eric

[Eric Seidel]

I just sent you a pull request implementing the change in behavior.

Thanks,

Eric

[David Balatero]

Ok thanks. I'm out of country so I can't merge -- can you monkey patch for now?

David

[Eric Seidel]

Yep, no problem.

Eric

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 21, 2011, at 13:32, David Balatero <dbal...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Ok thanks. I'm out of country so I can't merge -- can you monkey patch for now?
>
> David
>