java: decoding URI query string

Question

I need to decode a URI that contains a query string; expected input/output behavior is something like the following:

abstract class URIParser
{       
    /** example input: 
      * something?alias=pos&FirstName=Foo+A%26B%3DC&LastName=Bar */
    URIParser(String input) { ... }
    /** should return "something" for the example input */
    public String getPath(); 
    /** should return a map 
      * {alias: "pos", FirstName: "Foo+A&B=C", LastName: "Bar"} */
    public Map<String,String> getQuery();
}

I've tried using java.net.URI, but it seems to decode the query string so in the above example I'm left with "alias=pos&FirstName=Foo+A&B=C&LastName=Bar" so there is ambiguity whether a "&" is a query separator or is a character in a query component.

edit: just tried URI.getRawQuery() and it doesn't do the encoding, so I can split the query string with a "&", but then what do I do? Javascript has decodeURIComponent, I can't seem to find the corresponding method in Java.

Any suggestions? I would prefer not to use any new libraries.

Answer 1

See class URLDecoder