Talk:Query string

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It would be nice to have an expert's assessment of query strings as an alternative to session-based cookies. Cookie opponents often recommend query strings as a viable, if not superior, alternative, but rarely mention their disadvantages. Perhaps this assessment could provide a basis for a "Criticisms" paragraph in the Wikipedia entry for query strings. Thank you.

Contents 1 HTTP cookie 2 Query String: size limit? 3 encoding 4 How about client-side uses? 5 How about adding a disambiguation page for this article?

[edit] HTTP cookie

I have submitted the article HTTP cookie for peer review (I am posting this notice here as this article is related). Comments are welcome here: Wikipedia:Peer review/HTTP cookie/archive1. Thanks. - Liberatore(T) 16:57, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Query String: size limit?

It would seem that there might be a size limit on the query string. If there is, what is it? If there is or is not a limit it should be stated in this article. I, however, do not have this knowledge. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.25.155.9 (talk • contribs) 04:16, 19 June 2005

I think there is a limit on the total lenght of the URL, not on the query string itself. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 16:19, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

There is no standard limit on either the length of a query-part or the length of a URL or URI; however, some clients, proxies, and servers have implementation limits. From RFC 2616, section 3.2.1 (General Syntax):

The HTTP protocol does not place any a priori limit on the length of a URI. Servers MUST be able to handle the URI of any resource they serve, and SHOULD be able to handle URIs of unbounded length if they provide GET-based forms that could generate such URIs. A server SHOULD return 414 (Request-URI Too Long) status if a URI is longer than the server can handle (see section 10.4.15).

Note: Servers ought to be cautious about depending on URI lengths above 255 bytes, because some older client or proxy implementations might not properly support these lengths.

So no, there's no hard limit, just a recommendation to keep the overall URI under a reasonable size to deal with legacy code, and a mechanism for a server to notify a client that it loses because of an oversized URI. Bear in mind, though, that this spec is (in 2008) going on a decade old, so it's a bit conservative by modern standards. For example, it's not hard to get Google Maps to generate a URL with a query string that pushes the 500-byte mark.Tlesher (talk) 00:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] encoding

I came here hoping to find something more definitive about the use of + for space. It does seem to be an exception (as the article does already state) to the generic URI rules of RFC 3986. But I'm wishing for something more definitive about the actual scope of the exception (an RFC citation would be ideal). A colleague of mine was just bitten by this exact issue (a mailto: URI can have a portion set off by ? and resembling a query string, but is defined by RFC 2368 with no special meaning for +, so %20 has to be used) which is what started me looking. So does the + exception apply only to particular schemes, such as http or https? Is there an RFC that says so? The only one I have found is RFC 1630, but that's worded more like an early proposal for a generic syntax where + would apply in any scheme (and therefore would seem to conflict with RFC 3986 and the later scheme-specific RFCs). Also, 1630 isn't mentioned at all in rfc-editor's set of obsoletes and updates related to RFC 1738, 3986, etc. which makes it hard to see exactly where 1630 does (or doesn't) fit in the scheme of things. I hoped to find a later RFC that cites it and restates the +-for-space rule with a specific scope for where it applies, but I didn't (which needn't mean it doesn't exist). This turned out a lot more subtle than I expected, and if anybody actually knows the right RFCs to pin it down, it would be a good addition to the article. 128.210.4.214 (talk) 21:41, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How about client-side uses?

Although the primary use of the query string is to pass info to the server, there are also client-side uses. I am doing some work that involves reading and setting the query string in Javascript, accessed via "location.search", but because my expertise in this area is very limited, I don't feel qualified to add anything to the topic in Wikipedia.

Hopefully someone with some expertise in the area can add a bit on the topic.

[edit] How about adding a disambiguation page for this article?

Query string is often used in databases and information retrieval system, and the meaning is a string that encodes a query that was entered by the user or was automatically constructed by some engine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.149.198.98 (talk) 15:30, 3 June 2008 (UTC)