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

Flurl [disclosure: I'm the author] supports building query strings via anonymous objects (among other ways):

var url = "http://www.some-api.com".SetQueryParams(new
{
    api_key = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["SomeApiKey"],
    max_results = 20,
    q = "Don't worry, I'll get encoded!"
});

The optional Flurl.Http companion lib allows you to do HTTP calls right off the same fluent call chain, extending it into a full-blown REST client:

T result = await "https://api.mysite.com"
    .AppendPathSegment("person")
    .SetQueryParams(new { ap_key = "my-key" })
    .WithOAuthBearerToken("MyToken")
    .PostJsonAsync(new { first_name = firstName, last_name = lastName })
    .ReceiveJson<T>();

The full package is available on NuGet:

PM> Install-Package Flurl.Http

or just the stand-alone URL builder:

PM> Install-Package Flurl

Answer 2

Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents:

public static class HttpClientExt
{
    public static Uri AddQueryParams(this Uri uri, string query)
    {
        var ub = new UriBuilder(uri);
        ub.Query = string.IsNullOrEmpty(uri.Query) ? query : string.Join("&", uri.Query.Substring(1), query);
        return ub.Uri;
    }

    public static Uri AddQueryParams(this Uri uri, IEnumerable<string> query)
    {
        return uri.AddQueryParams(string.Join("&", query));
    } 

    public static Uri AddQueryParams(this Uri uri, string key, string value)
    {
        return uri.AddQueryParams(string.Join("=", HttpUtility.UrlEncode(key), HttpUtility.UrlEncode(value)));
    }

    public static Uri AddQueryParams(this Uri uri, params KeyValuePair<string,string>[] kvps)
    {
        return uri.AddQueryParams(kvps.Select(kvp => string.Join("=", HttpUtility.UrlEncode(kvp.Key), HttpUtility.UrlEncode(kvp.Value))));
    }

    public static Uri AddQueryParams(this Uri uri, IDictionary<string, string> kvps)
    {
        return uri.AddQueryParams(kvps.Select(kvp => string.Join("=", HttpUtility.UrlEncode(kvp.Key), HttpUtility.UrlEncode(kvp.Value))));
    }

    public static Uri AddQueryParams(this Uri uri, NameValueCollection nvc)
    {
        return uri.AddQueryParams(nvc.AllKeys.SelectMany(nvc.GetValues, (key, value) => string.Join("=", HttpUtility.UrlEncode(key), HttpUtility.UrlEncode(value))));
    }
}

The docs say that uri.Query will start with a ? if it's non-empty and you should trim it off if you're going to modify it.

Note that HttpUtility.UrlEncode is found in System.Web.

Usage:

var uri = new Uri("https://api.del.icio.us/v1/posts/suggest").AddQueryParam("url","http://stackoverflow.com")

Answer 3

I went with the solution proposed by DSO (answered on Aug 2 '11 at 7:29), his solution does not require using HttpUtility. However, as per an article posted in Dotnetpearls, using a Dictionary is faster (in performance) than using NameValueCollection. Here is DSO's solution modified to use Dictionary in place of NameValueCollection.

    public static Dictionary<string, string> QueryParametersDictionary()
    {
        var dictionary = new Dictionary<string, string>();
        dictionary.Add("name", "John Doe");
        dictionary.Add("address.city", "Seattle");
        dictionary.Add("address.state_code", "WA");
        dictionary.Add("api_key", "5352345263456345635");

        return dictionary;
    }

    public static string ToQueryString(Dictionary<string, string> nvc)
    {
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

        bool first = true;

        foreach (KeyValuePair<string, string> pair in nvc)
        {
                if (!first)
                {
                    sb.Append("&");
                }

                sb.AppendFormat("{0}={1}", Uri.EscapeDataString(pair.Key), Uri.EscapeDataString(pair.Value));

                first = false;
        }

        return sb.ToString();
    }

Answer 4

Chain-able wrapper class for HttpValueCollection:

namespace System.Web.Mvc {
    public class QueryStringBuilder {
        private NameValueCollection collection;
        public QueryStringBuilder() {
            collection = System.Web.HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(string.Empty);
        }
        public QueryStringBuilder Add(string key, string value) {
            collection.Add(key, value);
            return this;
        }
        public QueryStringBuilder Remove(string key) {
            collection.Remove(key);
            return this;
        }
        public string this[string key] {
            get { return collection[key]; }
            set { collection[key] = value; }
        }
        public string ToString() {
            return collection.ToString();
        }
    }
}

Example usage:

QueryStringBuilder parameters = new QueryStringBuilder()
    .Add("view", ViewBag.PageView)
    .Add("page", ViewBag.PageNumber)
    .Add("size", ViewBag.PageSize);
string queryString = parameters.ToString();

Answer 5

My offering:

public static Uri AddQuery(this Uri uri, string name, string value)
{
    // this actually returns HttpValueCollection : NameValueCollection
    // which uses unicode compliant encoding on ToString()
    var query = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(uri.Query);

    query.Add(name, value);

    var uriBuilder = new UriBuilder(uri)
    {
        Query = query.ToString()
    };

    return uriBuilder.Uri;
}

Usage:

var uri = new Uri("http://stackoverflow.com").AddQuery("such", "method")
                                             .AddQuery("wow", "soFluent");

// http://stackoverflow.com?such=method&wow=soFluent

Answer 6

Untested, but I think something along these lines would work quite nicely

public class QueryString
{
    private Dictionary<string,string> _Params = new Dictionary<string,string>();

    public overide ToString()
    {
        List<string> returnParams = new List<string>();

        foreach (KeyValuePair param in _Params)
        {
            returnParams.Add(String.Format("{0}={1}", param.Key, param.Value));
        }

        // return String.Format("?{0}", String.Join("&", returnParams.ToArray())); 

        // credit annakata
        return "?" + String.Join("&", returnParams.ToArray());
    }

    public void Add(string key, string value)
    {
        _Params.Add(key, HttpUtility.UrlEncode(value));
    }
}

QueryString query = new QueryString();

query.Add("param1", "value1");
query.Add("param2", "value2");

return query.ToString();