How to concatenate a Hash to URL parameters?

Question

a quick Ruby question for you:

params = {:q => "A query",:foo => "bar",:nasty => "Schrödinger's cat"}
p do_it(params)
=> q=A%20query&foo=bar&nasty=Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s+cat

(I think ö encodes like that, excuse me if its wrong) Is there a simpler way to do this than the following?:

def do_it(params)
  out = []
  params.each_pair{|key,val|
    out.push "#{CGI.escape(key.to_s)}=#{CGI.escape(val)}"
  }
  out.join("&")
end

I'm not looking to start a war over the 'best' way to do this - its just this method seems very kludgey and un-ruby like! Any tips?

Answer 1

Here's a shorter and more efficient method.

def parameterize(params)
  URI.escape(params.collect{|k,v| "#{k}=#{v}"}.join('&'))
end