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In Python, I can do this:
>>> import urlparse, urllib
>>> q = urlparse.parse_qsl("a=b&a=c&d=e")
>>> urllib.urlencode(q)
'a=b&a=c&d=e'
In Ruby[+Rails] I can't figure out how to do the same thing without "rolling my own," which seems odd. The Rails way doesn't work for me -- it adds square brackets to the names of the query parameters, which the server on the other end may or may not support:
>> q = CGI.parse("a=b&a=c&d=e")
=> {"a"=>["b", "c"], "d"=>["e"]}
>> q.to_params
=> "a[]=b&a[]=c&d[]=e"
My use case is simply that I wish to muck with the values of some of the values in the query-string portion of the URL. It seemed natural to lean on the standard library and/or Rails, and write something like this:
uri = URI.parse("http://example.com/foo?a=b&a=c&d=e")
q = CGI.parse(uri.query)
q.delete("d")
q["a"] << "d"
uri.query = q.to_params # should be to_param or to_query instead?
puts Net::HTTP.get_response(uri)
but only if the resulting URI is in fact http://example.com/foo?a=b&a=c&a=d, and not http://example.com/foo?a[]=b&a[]=c&a[]=d. Is there a correct or better way to do this?