Develop Reference

How can I make a string out of a complex URL address

I've been trying to make this URL a workable string in C#, but unfortunately using extra "" or "#" is not cutting it. Even breaking it into smaller strings is proving difficult. I want to be able to convert the entire address into a single string.
this is the full address:
<https://my.address.com/BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jsp?iDocID=ATTPCi6c.mZInSt5o3t_Xr8&sIDType=CUID&&sInstance=Last&lsMZV_MAT="+URLEncode(""+[Material].[Material - Key])+"&lsIZV_MAT=>
I've also tried this:
string url = #"https://my.address.com/BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jsp?iDocID=ATTPCi6c.mZInSt5o3t_Xr8&sIDType=CUID&&sInstance=Last&lsMZV_MAT=";
string url2 = #"+ URLEncode("" +[Material].[Material - Key]) + """"";
string url3 = #"&lsIZV_MAT=";
Any help is appreciated.

The simplest solution is put additional quotes inside string literal and use string.Concat to join all of them into single URL string:
string url = #"https://my.address.com/BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jsp?iDocID=ATTPCi6c.mZInSt5o3t_Xr8&sIDType=CUID&&sInstance=Last&lsMZV_MAT=";
string url2 = #"""+URLEncode(""+[Material].[Material - Key])+""";
string url3 = #"&lsIZV_MAT=";
string resultUrl = string.Concat(url, url2, url3);
NB: You can use Equals method or == operator to check if the generated string matches with desired URL string.

This may be a bit of a workaround rather than an actual solution but if you load the string from a text file and run to a breakpoint after it you should be able to find the way the characters are store or just run it from that.
You may also have the issue of some of the spaces you've added being left over which StringName.Replace could solve if that's causing issues.
I'd recommend first checking what exactly is being produced after the third statement and then let us know so we can try and see the difference between the result and original.

You are missing the triple quotes at the beginning of url2
string url = #"https://my.address.com/BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jsp?iDocID=ATTPCi6c.mZInSt5o3t_Xr8&sIDType=CUID&&sInstance=Last&lsMZV_MAT=";
string url2 = #"""+URLEncode(""+[Material].[Material - Key])+""";
string url3 = #"&lsIZV_MAT=";

I just made two updates
t&lsMZV_MAT=" to t&lsMZV_MAT="" AND
[Material - Key])+" to [Material - Key])+""
string s = #"<https://my.address.com/BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jsp?iDocID=ATTPCi6c.mZInSt5o3t_Xr8&sIDType=CUID&&sInstance=Last&lsMZV_MAT=""+ URLEncode([Material].[Material - Key])+""&lsIZV_MAT=>";
Console.Write(s);
Console.ReadKey();

how to convert var type holding URL attributes to string to use them for redirecting

In the below statement i have tried to convert the var type variable "original" to string but it does not return any value to originalStr. I basiaclly need to concatenate this result with another string in order to redirect.
I have tried all the possible ways to fetch the value into string but failed. Can anyone please help to solve this.
var url = Request.Url;
var original= url.AbsoluteUri.Replace(url.PathAndQuery, string.Empty);
string originalStr= Convert.ToString(original);

Treat url as c# object so I can split params

I want to use a console application to easily divide a URL from its params so I can URL encode the parameters. Is there a type that makes this simple? Please keep in mind that this is being run outside of a web server.
The URL is of the form
E.G.
string url = "http://sitename/folder1/someweb.dll?RetrieveTestByDateTime?PatientID=1234&param2=blah blah blah";
So then I can do
string finalUrl = "http://sitename/folder1/someweb.dll?RetriveTestByDateTime?PatientID=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(PatientIDValue) + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(param2Value);
Second, is the second ? valid? This data comes from a 3rd party app. Surely this can be accomplished with Regex, but I prefer not to use it as most people on my team do not know regular expressions.

Use the Uri class - pass in the string url to the constructor and it will parse out the different parts.
The query will be in the Query property and you can reconstruct the URL easily using the Scheme, AbsolutePath and the encoded Query.

Firstly your url structure is bad
string url = "http://sitename/folder1/someweb.dll?RetrieveTestByDateTime?PatientID=1234&param2=blah blah blah";
should be
string url = "http://sitename/folder1/someweb.dll?RetrieveTestByDateTime&PatientID=1234&param2=blah blah blah";
A possible solution, I'm not in a development environment now so this is from the head. Some changes may need to be done to the code.
string url = "http://sitename/folder1/someweb.dll?RetrieveTestByDateTime&PatientID=1234&param2=blah blah blah";
var uri = new Uri(url);
var queryString = uri.Query;
NameValueCollection query = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(queryString)
query["PatientID"] = string.Concat(HttpUtility.UrlEncode(PatientIDValue), HttpUtility.UrlEncode(param2Value));
// Rebuild the querystring
queryString = "?" +
string.Join("&",
Array.ConvertAll(query.AllKeys,
key => string.Format("{0}={1}",
HttpUtility.UrlEncode(key),
HttpUtility.UrlEncode(query[key]))));

Taking params from a url

Take these two URLs:
www.mySite.com?name=ssride360
www.mySite.com/ssride360
I know that to get the name param from url 1 you would do:
string name = Request.Params['name'];
But how would I get that for the second url?
I was thinking about attempting to copy the url and remove the known information (www.mySite.com) and then from there I could set name to the remainder.
How would I do a url copy like that? Is there a better way to get 'ssride360' from the second url?
Edit Looking on SO I found some info on copying URLs
string url = HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.AbsoluteUri;
// http://localhost:1302/TESTERS/Default6.aspx
string path = HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.AbsolutePath;
// /TESTERS/Default6.aspx
Is this the best way for me? each url have one additional param (mySite.com/ssride360?site=SO) for example. Also I know that mySite.com/ssride360 would reference a folder in my project so wouldn't i be getting that file along with it (mySite.com/ssride360/Default6.aspx)?
At this point I think there are better ways then a url copy.
Suggestions?

Uri x = new Uri("http://www.mySite.com/ssride360");
Console.WriteLine (x.AbsolutePath);
prints /ssride360

This method will allow you to get the name even if there is something after it. It is also a good model to use if you plan on putting other stuff after the name and want to get those values.
char [] delim = new char[] {'/'};
string url = "www.mySite.com/ssride360";
string name = url.Split(delim)[1];
Then if you had a URL that included an ID after the name you could do:
char [] delim = new char[] {'/'};
string url = "www.mySite.com/ssride360/abc1234";
string name = url.Split(delim)[1];
string id = url.Split(delim)[2];

URL rewriting is a common solution for this problem. You give it the patterns of the URL's you want to match and what it needs to change it into. So it would detect www.mySite.com/ssride360 and transform it into www.mySite.com?name=ssride360. The user of the website sees the original URL and doesn't know anything changed, but your code sees the transformed URL so you can access the variables in the normal way. Another big plus is that the rules allow you to set the patterns that get transformed as well as the ones that just get passed through to actual folders / files.
http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/461/creating-rewrite-rules-for-the-url-rewrite-module/

Like javascript? If so...
<script type="text/javascript">
function getName() {
var urlParts = window.location.pathname.split('/'); //split the URL.
return urlParts[1]; //get the value to the right of the '/'.
}
</script>

Get individual query parameters from Uri [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Get URL parameters from a string in .NET
(17 answers)
Closed 4 years ago.
I have a uri string like: http://example.com/file?a=1&b=2&c=string%20param
Is there an existing function that would convert query parameter string into a dictionary same way as ASP.NET Context.Request does it.
I'm writing a console app and not a web-service so there is no Context.Request to parse the URL for me.
I know that it's pretty easy to crack the query string myself but I'd rather use a FCL function is if exists.

Use this:
string uri = ...;
string queryString = new System.Uri(uri).Query;
var queryDictionary = System.Web.HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(queryString);
This code by Tejs isn't the 'proper' way to get the query string from the URI:
string.Join(string.Empty, uri.Split('?').Skip(1));

You can use:
var queryString = url.Substring(url.IndexOf('?')).Split('#')[0]
System.Web.HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(queryString)
MSDN

This should work:
string url = "http://example.com/file?a=1&b=2&c=string%20param";
string querystring = url.Substring(url.IndexOf('?'));
System.Collections.Specialized.NameValueCollection parameters =
System.Web.HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(querystring);
According to MSDN. Not the exact collectiontype you are looking for, but nevertheless useful.
Edit: Apparently, if you supply the complete url to ParseQueryString it will add 'http://example.com/file?a' as the first key of the collection. Since that is probably not what you want, I added the substring to get only the relevant part of the url.

I had to do this for a modern windows app. I used the following:
public static class UriExtensions
{
private static readonly Regex _regex = new Regex(#"[?&](\w[\w.]*)=([^?&]+)");
public static IReadOnlyDictionary<string, string> ParseQueryString(this Uri uri)
{
var match = _regex.Match(uri.PathAndQuery);
var paramaters = new Dictionary<string, string>();
while (match.Success)
{
paramaters.Add(match.Groups[1].Value, match.Groups[2].Value);
match = match.NextMatch();
}
return paramaters;
}
}

Have a look at HttpUtility.ParseQueryString() It'll give you a NameValueCollection instead of a dictionary, but should still do what you need.
The other option is to use string.Split().
string url = #"http://example.com/file?a=1&b=2&c=string%20param";
string[] parts = url.Split(new char[] {'?','&'});
///parts[0] now contains http://example.com/file
///parts[1] = "a=1"
///parts[2] = "b=2"
///parts[3] = "c=string%20param"

For isolated projects, where dependencies must be kept to a minimum, I found myself using this implementation:
var arguments = uri.Query
.Substring(1) // Remove '?'
.Split('&')
.Select(q => q.Split('='))
.ToDictionary(q => q.FirstOrDefault(), q => q.Skip(1).FirstOrDefault());
Do note, however, that I do not handle encoded strings of any kind, as I was using this in a controlled setting, where encoding issues would be a coding error on the server side that should be fixed.

In a single line of code:
string xyz = Uri.UnescapeDataString(HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(Request.QueryString.ToString()).Get("XYZ"));

Microsoft Azure offers a framework that makes it easy to perform this.
http://azure.github.io/azure-mobile-services/iOS/v2/Classes/MSTable.html#//api/name/readWithQueryString:completion:

You could reference System.Web in your console application and then look for the Utility functions that split the URL parameters.