Get URL parameters from a string in .NET

Question

Use static ParseQueryString method of System.Web.HttpUtility class that returns NameValueCollection.

Uri myUri = new Uri("http://www.example.com?param1=good&param2=bad");
string param1 = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(myUri.Query).Get("param1");

Check documentation at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms150046.aspx

This is probably what you want

var uri = new Uri("http://domain.test/Default.aspx?var1=true&var2=test&var3=3");
var query = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(uri.Query);

var var2 = query.Get("var2");

Here's another alternative if, for any reason, you can't or don't want to use HttpUtility.ParseQueryString().

This is built to be somewhat tolerant to "malformed" query strings, i.e. http://test/test.html?empty= becomes a parameter with an empty value. The caller can verify the parameters if needed.

public static class UriHelper
{
    public static Dictionary<string, string> DecodeQueryParameters(this Uri uri)
    {
        if (uri == null)
            throw new ArgumentNullException("uri");

        if (uri.Query.Length == 0)
            return new Dictionary<string, string>();

        return uri.Query.TrimStart('?')
                        .Split(new[] { '&', ';' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries)
                        .Select(parameter => parameter.Split(new[] { '=' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries))
                        .GroupBy(parts => parts[0],
                                 parts => parts.Length > 2 ? string.Join("=", parts, 1, parts.Length - 1) : (parts.Length > 1 ? parts[1] : ""))
                        .ToDictionary(grouping => grouping.Key,
                                      grouping => string.Join(",", grouping));
    }
}

Test

[TestClass]
public class UriHelperTest
{
    [TestMethod]
    public void DecodeQueryParameters()
    {
        DecodeQueryParametersTest("http://test/test.html", new Dictionary<string, string>());
        DecodeQueryParametersTest("http://test/test.html?", new Dictionary<string, string>());
        DecodeQueryParametersTest("http://test/test.html?key=bla/blub.xml", new Dictionary<string, string> { { "key", "bla/blub.xml" } });
        DecodeQueryParametersTest("http://test/test.html?eins=1&zwei=2", new Dictionary<string, string> { { "eins", "1" }, { "zwei", "2" } });
        DecodeQueryParametersTest("http://test/test.html?empty", new Dictionary<string, string> { { "empty", "" } });
        DecodeQueryParametersTest("http://test/test.html?empty=", new Dictionary<string, string> { { "empty", "" } });
        DecodeQueryParametersTest("http://test/test.html?key=1&", new Dictionary<string, string> { { "key", "1" } });
        DecodeQueryParametersTest("http://test/test.html?key=value?&b=c", new Dictionary<string, string> { { "key", "value?" }, { "b", "c" } });
        DecodeQueryParametersTest("http://test/test.html?key=value=what", new Dictionary<string, string> { { "key", "value=what" } });
        DecodeQueryParametersTest("http://www.google.com/search?q=energy+edge&rls=com.microsoft:en-au&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1%22",
            new Dictionary<string, string>
            {
                { "q", "energy+edge" },
                { "rls", "com.microsoft:en-au" },
                { "ie", "UTF-8" },
                { "oe", "UTF-8" },
                { "startIndex", "" },
                { "startPage", "1%22" },
            });
        DecodeQueryParametersTest("http://test/test.html?key=value;key=anotherValue", new Dictionary<string, string> { { "key", "value,anotherValue" } });
    }

    private static void DecodeQueryParametersTest(string uri, Dictionary<string, string> expected)
    {
        Dictionary<string, string> parameters = new Uri(uri).DecodeQueryParameters();
        Assert.AreEqual(expected.Count, parameters.Count, "Wrong parameter count. Uri: {0}", uri);
        foreach (var key in expected.Keys)
        {
            Assert.IsTrue(parameters.ContainsKey(key), "Missing parameter key {0}. Uri: {1}", key, uri);
            Assert.AreEqual(expected[key], parameters[key], "Wrong parameter value for {0}. Uri: {1}", parameters[key], uri);
        }
    }
}

Looks like you should loop over the values of myUri.Query and parse it from there.

 string desiredValue;
 foreach(string item in myUri.Query.Split('&'))
 {
     string[] parts = item.Replace("?", "").Split('=');
     if(parts[0] == "desiredKey")
     {
         desiredValue = parts[1];
         break;
     }
 }

I wouldn't use this code without testing it on a bunch of malformed URLs however. It might break on some/all of these:

• hello.html?
• hello.html?valuelesskey
• hello.html?key=value=hi
• hello.html?hi=value?&b=c
• etc

@Andrew and @CZFox

I had the same bug and found the cause to be that parameter one is in fact: http://www.example.com?param1 and not param1 which is what one would expect.

By removing all characters before and including the question mark fixes this problem. So in essence the HttpUtility.ParseQueryString function only requires a valid query string parameter containing only characters after the question mark as in:

HttpUtility.ParseQueryString ( "param1=good&param2=bad" )

My workaround:

string RawUrl = "http://www.example.com?param1=good&param2=bad";
int index = RawUrl.IndexOf ( "?" );
if ( index > 0 )
    RawUrl = RawUrl.Substring ( index ).Remove ( 0, 1 );

Uri myUri = new Uri( RawUrl, UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute);
string param1 = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString( myUri.Query ).Get( "param1" );`

You can use the following workaround for it to work with the first parameter too:

var param1 =
    HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(url.Substring(
        new []{0, url.IndexOf('?')}.Max()
    )).Get("param1");

You can just use the Uri to get the list of the query strings or find a specific parameter.

Uri myUri = new Uri("http://www.example.com?param1=good&param2=bad");
var params = myUri.ParseQueryString();
var specific = myUri.ParseQueryString().Get("spesific");
var paramByIndex = = myUri.ParseQueryString().Get(1);

You can find more from here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.uri?view=net-5.0