URL query string convention for multiple sort

Question

I have a RESTful web application that supports multiple sort fields on a collection of items. Is there a common convention for encoding these sort fields into the query string o

Answer 1

For REST, I prefer a more intuitive syntax:

http://myapp.com/books?sort=+author,-datepublished&count=12

And more elaborated (without '+' sign):

http://myapp.com/books?sort=author,-datepublished&count=12

Easy to remember...