CODEWITHSUNDEEP
httpurlstandards
Nobita
Nobita

Reputation: 23713

Having two ? in a URL - Is it valid?

Here is the thing:

Let's say I have a base URL like this:

www.mysite.com?my_first_param=1&my_second_param=2

But now I want to add a new parameter to my URL:

www.mysite.com?my_first_param=1&my_second_param=2&my_redirect_site=www.myothersite.com

Imagine that I am using a service where they add new tracking parameters to my URL. For example: 

first_tracking=value1&second_value=value2

Since my BASE url already has a "?" the parameters are added with a "&", so my final URL would look like this:

www.mysite.com?my_first_param=1&my_second_param=2&my_redirect_site=www.myothersite.com&first_tracking=value1&second_value=value2

This is a correct URL with several parameters, but when I do the redirect to www.myothersite.com, since the parameters start with a "&", they get lost. Would it be correct to add the tracking parameters with a starting "?" ? Like this:

www.mysite.com?my_first_param=1&my_second_param=2&my_redirect_site=www.myothersite.com?first_tracking=value1&second_value=value2

If not, what would be a good approach for dealing with this? I believe is responsibility of the redirect to pass through the tracking parameters to the redirect URL.

Upvotes: 5

Views: 6705

Answers (4)

Chris Diver
Chris Diver

Reputation: 19842

It depends on the amount of control you have over the service adding the tracking parameters. Can you change the url after the parameters have been added?

If you can, then you should use a url builder to add the tracking parameters to your redirect url, then url encode that url entriely, tracking parameters included.

If you are not in control and a third party modifies your url, then you will have to do this when you redirect, read the parameters in the url, take your redirect url and the tracking parameters, add the tracking parameters to the redirect url before redirect.

Upvotes: 0

Sandeep Kumar Kalpane
Sandeep Kumar Kalpane

Reputation: 1

Encode the parameter, "?" would be replaced by %3F

Upvotes: 0

Yuliy
Yuliy

Reputation: 17728

You should URLencode each param name and value properly, so if the map of params you want is this:

my_first_param => 1
my_second_param => 2
my_redirect_site => www.myothersite.com?first_tracking=value1&second_value=value2

then you should pass this as the query string:

?my_first_param=1&my_second_param=2&my_redirect_site=www.myothersite.com%3Ffirst_tracking%3Dvalue1%26second_value%3Dvalue2

You should be using a library which does this already to build up URIs to handle this encoding for you.

Upvotes: 2

SDC
SDC

Reputation: 14212

No, you can't have a second question mark in a URL.

Furthermore, if you have ampersands in the redirect URL, they will be seen as separate parameters for the main URL, and not seen as connected to the redirect URL.

If you want to do a redirect like this, you need to URLEncode the whole of the redirected URL. There are standard functions in most web-facing languages to do this.

Upvotes: 0

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