querystring encoding of a javascript object

Question

Do you know a fast and simple way to encode a javascript object into a string that I can pass via GET?

No jQuery, no other frameworks, just plain Javascript :)

Answer 1

like this?

serialize = function(obj) {
  var str = [];
  for(var p in obj)
     str.push(p + "=" + encodeURIComponent(obj[p]));
  return str.join("&");
}

alert(serialize({foo: "hi there", bar: "100%" }));

// edit: this one also converts recursive objects (using php "array" notation for the query string)

 serialize = function(obj, prefix) {
  var str = [];
  for(var p in obj) {
   var k = prefix ? prefix + "[" + p + "]" : p, v = obj[p];
   str.push(typeof v == "object" ? 
    serialize(v, k) :
    encodeURIComponent(k) + "=" + encodeURIComponent(v));
  }
  return str.join("&");
 }

 alert(serialize({foo: "hi there", bar: { blah: 123, quux: [1, 2, 3] }}));

Answer 2

Do you need to send arbitrary objects? If so, GET is a bad idea since there are limits to the lengths of URLs that user agents and web servers will accepts. My suggestion would be to build up an array of name-value pairs to send and then build up a query string:

function QueryStringBuilder() {
    var nameValues = [];

    this.add = function(name, value) {
        nameValues.push( {name: name, value: value} );
    };

    this.toQueryString = function() {
        var segments = [], nameValue;
        for (var i = 0, len = nameValues.length; i < len; i++) {
            nameValue = nameValues[i];
            segments[i] = encodeURIComponent(nameValue.name) + "=" + encodeURIComponent(nameValue.value);
        }
        return segments.join("&");
    };
}

var qsb = new QueryStringBuilder();
qsb.add("veg", "cabbage");
qsb.add("vegCount", "5");

alert( qsb.toQueryString() );

Answer 3

use JSON.

take a look at this question for ideas on how to implement.