How to turn a Ruby Hash into HTTP Params

Question

That is pretty easy with a plain hash like

{:a => "a", :b => "b"}

which would translate into

"a=a&b=b"

but what do you do with something more complex like

{:a => "a", :b => ["c", "d", "e"]}

which should translate in

"a=a&b[0]=c&b[1]=d&b[2]=e"

or even worse, with something like:

{:a => "a", :b => [{:c => "c", :d => "d"}, {:e => "e", :f => "f"}]

Thanks for the much appreciated help with that!

Answer 1

Steal from Merb:

# File merb/core_ext/hash.rb, line 87
def to_params
  params = ''
  stack = []

  each do |k, v|
    if v.is_a?(Hash)
      stack << [k,v]
    else
      params << "#{k}=#{v}&"
    end
  end

  stack.each do |parent, hash|
    hash.each do |k, v|
      if v.is_a?(Hash)
        stack << ["#{parent}[#{k}]", v]
      else
        params << "#{parent}[#{k}]=#{v}&"
      end
    end
  end

  params.chop! # trailing &
  params
end

See http://noobkit.com/show/ruby/gems/development/merb/hash/to_params.html

Answer 2

class Hash
  def to_params
    params = ''
    stack = []

    each do |k, v|
      if v.is_a?(Hash)
        stack << [k,v]
      elsif v.is_a?(Array)
        stack << [k,Hash.from_array(v)]
      else
        params << "#{k}=#{v}&"
      end
    end

    stack.each do |parent, hash|
      hash.each do |k, v|
        if v.is_a?(Hash)
          stack << ["#{parent}[#{k}]", v]
        else
          params << "#{parent}[#{k}]=#{v}&"
        end
      end
    end

    params.chop! 
    params
  end

  def self.from_array(array = [])
    h = Hash.new
    array.size.times do |t|
      h[t] = array[t]
    end
    h
  end

end

Answer 3

Julien, your self-answer is a good one, and I've shameless borrowed from it, but it doesn't properly escape reserved characters, and there are a few other edge cases where it breaks down.

require "addressable/uri"
uri = Addressable::URI.new
uri.query_values = {:a => "a", :b => ["c", "d", "e"]}
uri.query
# => "a=a&b[0]=c&b[1]=d&b[2]=e"
uri.query_values = {:a => "a", :b => [{:c => "c", :d => "d"}, {:e => "e", :f => "f"}]}
uri.query
# => "a=a&b[0][c]=c&b[0][d]=d&b[1][e]=e&b[1][f]=f"
uri.query_values = {:a => "a", :b => {:c => "c", :d => "d"}}
uri.query
# => "a=a&b[c]=c&b[d]=d"
uri.query_values = {:a => "a", :b => {:c => "c", :d => true}}
uri.query
# => "a=a&b[c]=c&b[d]"
uri.query_values = {:a => "a", :b => {:c => "c", :d => true}, :e => []}
uri.query
# => "a=a&b[c]=c&b[d]"

Note: requires the version of Addressable on github.

Answer 4

For basic, non-nested hashes, Rails/ActiveSupport has Object#to_query. It unfortunately seems to break on nested array:

>> {:a => "a", :b => ["c", "d", "e"]}.to_query
=> "a=a&b%5B%5D=c&b%5B%5D=d&b%5B%5D=e"
>> CGI.unescape({:a => "a", :b => ["c", "d", "e"]}.to_query)
=> "a=a&b[]=c&b[]=d&b[]=e"

http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/Object.html#method-i-to_query