How to build a query string for a URL in C#?

Question

A common task when calling web resources from a code is building a query string to including all the necessary parameters. While by all means no rocket science, there are so

Answer 1

Here's my late entry. I didn't like any of the others for various reasons, so I wrote my own.

This version features:

• Use of StringBuilder only. No ToArray() calls or other extension methods. It doesn't look as pretty as some of the other responses, but I consider this a core function so efficiency is more important than having "fluent", "one-liner" code which hide inefficiencies.

• Handles multiple values per key. (Didn't need it myself but just to silence Mauricio ;)

  public string ToQueryString(NameValueCollection nvc)
  {
      StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("?");
  
      bool first = true;
  
      foreach (string key in nvc.AllKeys)
      {
          foreach (string value in nvc.GetValues(key))
          {
              if (!first)
              {
                  sb.Append("&");
              }
  
              sb.AppendFormat("{0}={1}", Uri.EscapeDataString(key), Uri.EscapeDataString(value));
  
              first = false;
          }
      }
  
      return sb.ToString();
  }
  

Example Usage

        var queryParams = new NameValueCollection()
        {
            { "x", "1" },
            { "y", "2" },
            { "foo", "bar" },
            { "foo", "baz" },
            { "special chars", "? = &" },
        };

        string url = "http://example.com/stuff" + ToQueryString(queryParams);

        Console.WriteLine(url);

Output

http://example.com/stuff?x=1&y=2&foo=bar&foo=baz&special%20chars=%3F%20%3D%20%26