Defacto Standard: field[]=a&field[]=b&field[]=c becomes field=["a","b","c"]

[jmealo]

I think we should re-open #444 as the behavior requested is found in PHP, Ruby and ASP.NET as well as jQuery's .param making this a defacto standard.

For your consideration, I have submitted PR #896 for the server component and #11 for the client component.

Behavior

Input:

field[]=a
field[]=b
field[]=c

Output:

field = ["a","b","c"]

Input:

pizza[left]=pepperoni
pizza[right]=anchovies

Output:

pizza = { "left": "pepperoni", "right": "anchovies" }

Input:

pizza[left][]=pepperoni
pizza[left][]=bacon
pizza[right][]=anchovies

Output:

pizza = { "left": ["pepperoni", "bacon"], "right": ["anchovies"] }

[micahr]

I think this might be better implemented as a new plugin instead of changing how each plugin uses the querystring. What do you think @DonutEspresso?

[DonutEspresso]

Thanks for the PR, @jmealo! There's currently ongoing work to pull the plugins out into their own repo, so I think we may hold on to this PR in the meantime, and eventually merge it into the new repo.

That said, it looks like qs should support the parsing the behavior we want, at least, based on the readme. If we can continue to use qs and get the desired behavior, that would be preferable, and opt into the new behavior using an options flag. Nothing against the other module, but I'd prefer something that has ongoing activity and is still being actively supported.

If that's not possible, we could probably roll this as a separate plugin, and let users choose which plugin they want to use. I feel the existing plugin should adhere to the standard as much as possible, even despite the syntax's defacto usage.

[Cyberuben]

Is there any progress on this issue?

[DonutEspresso]

We aren't actively working on this PR - all new plugin changes should go to the plugins repo. That said, it looks like qs should already support this behavior. If that's not the case, would be happy to look into it.

[trentm]

Hi all,

I'm wondering if restify@4 and restify-clients@1 already work adequately here without needing a change:

Current restify-client@1 behaviour doesn't use the bracket notation:

> querystring.stringify({field: ['a', 'b', 'c']})
'field=a&field=b&field=c'

However current restify@4 server-side behaviour does parse that syntax
to an array:

> qs.parse('field=a&field=b&field=c')
{ field: [ 'a', 'b', 'c' ] }

And current restify@4 server-side behaviour does handle the bracket notation,
if there is a client that sends it:

> qs.parse('field[]=a&field[]=b&field[]=c')
{ field: [ 'a', 'b', 'c' ] }

Independently, I suppose a case could be made for restify-client to use the qs module instead of the current querystring to perhaps favour the bracket notation. However I don't know if that is needed for functionality. Perhaps for talking to servers other than those implemented with restify?

[jmealo]

@DonutEspresso: I can't speak towards the long term support of the included module/repo but the code contained predates Node.js and should be considered mature. I believe that I used the smallest/safest code I could find to keep the size down. It was a while ago some I'm a bit fuzzy on the specifics.

I don't use restify anymore and will defer to the maintainers.

I do however stand by the work. The CI tests fail due to this being a multiple-repository pull request

[retrohacker]

Migrated to https://github.com/restify/node-restify/blob/5.x/FEATURE_REQUESTS.md

Closed restify/clients#11 leaving a comment explaining the rationale.

A note for future contributors (:heart:) a majority of the work needed to carry this over the finish line has been done by @jmealo, you can find it on their PR above 😄