Remove brackets from url with array of ids (Request.js)

Question

I have an application with nodejs express who makes request but when I pass an array I am:

Example: /foo?id=1&id=3&id=5

How to remove '[]' ?

var requestQueryParams = {id: [1,3,5]}

var options = {
        url: 'www.test.com',
        headers: {'content-type': 'application/json', 'accept': 'application/json'},
        qs: requestQueryParams || {}
    };

request.get(options), function(){...}

result: www.test.com?id[0]=1&id[1]=3&id[2]=5

Request.js = https://www.npmjs.org/package/request

Qs.js = https://www.npmjs.org/package/qs

Qs.stringify({ a: ['b', 'c', 'd'] }); // 'a[0]=b&a[1]=c&a[2]=d'

Answer 1

Since some time now there is a better solution. request uses qs per default to stringify the passed in qs object which also accepts options for formatting it. One of this options is arrayFormat which accepts the following values:

• indices : Default behavior. Produces a string including the index: id[0]=foo&id[1]=bar&id[2]=baz . Useful if you want to ensure the correct order.
• brackets : Produces a string with only brackets appended: id[]=foo&id[]=bar&id[]=baz .
• repeat : Produces a string without any brackets: id=foo&id=bar&id=baz . Older services that don't support arrays may accept this but will then only use the last value.

A options object with this would look like the following:

const request = require('request');
const options = { 
  ...
  qs: {
    id: [ 'foo', 'bar', 'baz' ],
  },
  qsStringifyOptions: { arrayFormat: 'repeat' },
};
request(options);

See also https://github.com/request/request#requestoptions-callback , where that option is also mentioned.

Answer 2

What do you want instead? If you want www.test.com?id0=1&id1=3&id2=5 , then you need to give it a params object like this:

var requestQueryParams = { id0: 1, id1: 3, id2: 5 }

If you already have an object that looks like { id: [1,2,3] } , then you need to convert that object into one like the above. You can do that in a for loop easily enough:

var requestQueryParams = { id: [1,3,5] },
    newRequestQueryParams = {};

for(var i = 0; i < requestQueryParams.id.length; i++) {
  var paramName = "id" + i, // "id0", "id1", etc.
      id = requestQueryParams.id[i];

  newRequestQueryParams[paramName] = id;
}

console.log(newRequestQueryParams);
// => { id0: 1, id1: 3, id2: 5 }

Update: If you want a query string like id=1&id=3&id=5 (although this would be very strange, as I mention in my comment below), you can also do it in a for loop, as above, or you could do something like this:

var requestQueryParams = { id: [1,3,5] },
    queryStringParts = [], // an array this time
    queryString;

for(var i = 0; i < requestQueryParams.id.length; i++) {
  var param = "id=" + parseInt( requestQueryParams.id[i] );
  queryStringParts.push(param);
}
// queryStringParts is now [ "id=1", "id=3", "id=5" ]

queryString = queryStringParts.join("&")
console.log(queryString);
// => "id=1&id=3&id=5"

I used parseInt inside the for loop because I'm assuming the IDs are coming from an untrusted source (eg a user) and, since you're building a string manually instead of using a library that will encode the data for you, you want to prevent a malicious user from injecting arbitrary strings into your request. You could also use encodeURIComponent , but it's overkill if IDs should always be numbers.

Answer 3

My Solution is override (request.Request.prototype.qs)

var qs = require('qs'),
request = require('request'),
url = require('url');

var stringify;
var toString = Object.prototype.toString;

var isArray = Array.isArray || function (arr) {
return toString.call(arr) === '[object Array]';
};

var objectKeys = Object.keys || function (obj) {
var ret = [];
for (var key in obj) {
    if (obj.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
        ret.push(key);
    }
}
return ret;
};

var stringifyString = function (str, prefix) {
if (!prefix) throw new TypeError('stringify expects an object');
return prefix + '=' + encodeURIComponent(str);
};

var stringifyArray = function (arr, prefix) {
var ret = [];
if (!prefix) throw new TypeError('stringify expects an object');
for (var i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
    ret.push(stringify(arr[i], prefix));
}
return ret.join('&');
};

function stringifyObject(obj, prefix) {
var ret = [];
var keys = objectKeys(obj);
var key;

for (var i = 0, len = keys.length; i < len; ++i) {

    key = keys[i];

    if ('' === key) {
        continue;
    }

    if (null === obj[key]) {
        ret.push(encodeURIComponent(key) + '=');

    } else {
        ret.push(stringify(obj[key], prefix ? prefix + '[' + encodeURIComponent(key) + ']' :     encodeURIComponent(key)));
    }
}

return ret.join('&');
}

stringify = function (obj, prefix) {
if (isArray(obj)) {
    return stringifyArray(obj, prefix);
} else if ('[object Object]' === toString.call(obj)) {
    return stringifyObject(obj, prefix);
} else if ('string' === typeof obj) {
    return stringifyString(obj, prefix);
} else {
    return prefix + '=' + encodeURIComponent(String(obj));
}
};

And override prototype.qs :

request.Request.prototype.qs = function (q, clobber) {
var base;

if (!clobber && this.uri.query) {
    base = qs.parse(this.uri.query)
}
else {
    base = {}
}

for (var i in q) {
    base[i] = q[i]
}

if (stringify(base) === '') {
    return this
}

this.uri = url.parse(this.uri.href.split('?')[0] + '?' + stringify(base));
this.url = this.uri;
this.path = this.uri.path;

return this;
};