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A URL Inception: Sending Query String within a Query String

I came across a simple but interesting solution when working on a project that required sending query string that contains another query string (i.e. a URL Inception :) ... )

First Pass:
http://somedomain.com/someservice?query=http://anotherdomain.com/anotherservice?dream1=value1

Which works fine as long as you are sending a single query string.

However, if you have additional query string your data breaks at the first ampersand of the second query string.

i.e. http://somedomain.com/someservice?dream1=value1&dream2=http://anotherdomain.com/anotherservice?&subdream1=subdreamvalue1

will be interpreted as:


after the URL is translated in a browser.

The Solution:
Using good old URL encoding. Changing the ampersand in the second query string to %26 
fixes the issue.

i.e.

http://somedomain.com/someservice?dream1=value1&dream2=http://anotherdomain.com/anotherservice?%26subdream1=subdreamvalue1

Will have all query strings in their respective URL.




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