Plus sign in query parameter becomes empty string (ASP.NET Core)

Question

In my application I want to add sorting like that: 'https://example.com/entity?sort_by=+property'.

When I try to pass plus sign to query, ASP.NET Core returns 'property' without plus sign. How can I fix this?

Answer 1

The plus symbol is a reserved character according to RFC3986 which is the standard specification for URIs and it is used to represent a space, therefore, if you want to use it in your URL as literally the "+" character instead of a space, you need to encode it so it looks like:

https://example.com/entity?sort_by=%2Bproperty

In ASP.NET Core you can encode / decode URL's as follows:

using System.Net;

string url = "https://example.com/entity?sort_by=+property";

string encodedUrl = WebUtility.UrlEncode(url);
string decodedUrl = WebUtility.UrlDecode(encodedUrl);

See here for more info about URL encoding.