# qs <sup>[![Version Badge][2]][1]</sup>
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A querystring parsing and stringifying library with some added security.
Lead Maintainer: [Jordan Harband](https://github.com/ljharb)
The **qs** module was originally created and maintained by [TJ Holowaychuk](https://github.com/visionmedia/node-querystring).
## Usage
```javascript
var qs = require('qs');
var assert = require('assert');
var obj = qs.parse('a=c');
assert.deepEqual(obj, { a: 'c' });
var str = qs.stringify(obj);
assert.equal(str, 'a=c');
```
### Parsing Objects
[](#preventEval)
```javascript
qs.parse(string, [options]);
```
**qs** allows you to create nested objects within your query strings, by surrounding the name of sub-keys with square brackets `[]`.
For example, the string `'foo[bar]=baz'` converts to:
```javascript
assert.deepEqual(qs.parse('foo[bar]=baz'), {
foo: {
bar: 'baz'
}
});
```
When using the `plainObjects` option the parsed value is returned as a null object, created via `Object.create(null)` and as such you should be aware that prototype methods will not exist on it and a user may set those names to whatever value they like:
```javascript
var nullObject = qs.parse('a[hasOwnProperty]=b', { plainObjects: true });
assert.deepEqual(nullObject, { a: { hasOwnProperty: 'b' } });
```
By default parameters that would overwrite properties on the object prototype are ignored, if you wish to keep the data from those fields either use `plainObjects` as mentioned above, or set `allowPrototypes` to `true` which will allow user input to overwrite those properties. *WARNING* It is generally a bad idea to enable this option as it can cause problems when attempting to use the properties that have been overwritten. Always be careful with this option.
```javascript
var protoObject = qs.parse('a[hasOwnProperty]=b', { allowPrototypes: true });
assert.deepEqual(protoObject, { a: { hasOwnProperty: 'b' } });
```
URI encoded strings work too:
```javascript
assert.deepEqual(qs.parse('a%5Bb%5D=c'), {
a: { b: 'c' }
});
```
You can also nest your objects, like `'foo[bar][baz]=foobarbaz'`:
```javascript
assert.deepEqual(qs.parse('foo[bar][baz]=foobarbaz'), {
foo: {
bar: {
baz: 'foobarbaz'
}
}
});
```
By default, when nesting objects **qs** will only parse up to 5 children deep. This means if you attempt to parse a string like
`'a[b][c][d][e][f][g][h][i]=j'` your resulting object will be:
```javascript
var expected = {
a: {
b: {
c: {
d: {
e: {
f: {
'[g][h][i]': 'j'
}
}
}
}
}
}
};
var string = 'a[b][c][d][e][f][g][h][i]=j';
assert.deepEqual(qs.parse(string), expected);
```
This depth can be overridden by passing a `depth` option to `qs.parse(string, [options])`:
```javascript
var deep = qs.parse('a[b][c][d][e][f][g][h][i]=j', { depth: 1 });
assert.deepEqual(deep, { a: { b: { '[c][d][e][f][g][h][i]': 'j' } } });
```
The depth limit helps mitigate abuse when **qs** is used to parse user input, and it is recommended to keep it a reasonably small number.
For similar reasons, by default **qs** will only parse up to 1000 parameters. This can be overridden by passing a `parameterLimit` option:
```javascript
var limited = qs.parse('a=b&c=d', { parameterLimit: 1 });
assert.deepEqual(limited, { a: 'b' });
```
To bypass the leading question mark, use `ignoreQueryPrefix`:
```javascript
var prefixed = qs.parse('?a=b&c=d', { ignoreQueryPrefix: true });
assert.deepEqual(prefixed, { a: 'b', c: 'd' });
```
An optional delimiter can also be passed:
```javascript
var delimited = qs.parse('a=b;c=d', { delimiter: ';' });
assert.deepEqual(delimited, { a: 'b', c: 'd' });
```
Delimiters can be a regular expression too:
```javascript
var regexed = qs.parse('a=b;c=d,e=f', { delimiter: /[;,]/ });
assert.deepEqual(regexed, { a: 'b', c: 'd', e: 'f' });
```
Option `allowDots` can be used to enable dot notation:
```javascript
var withDots = qs.parse('a.b=c', { allowDots: true });
assert.deepEqual(withDots, { a: { b: 'c' } });
```
If you have to deal with legacy browsers or services, there's
also support for decoding percent-encoded octets as iso-8859-1:
```javascript
var oldCharset = qs.parse('a=%A7', { charset: 'iso-8859-1' });
assert.deepEqual(oldCharset, { a: '§' });
```
Some services add an initial `utf8=✓` value to forms so that old
Internet Explorer versions are more likely to submit the form as
utf-8. Additionally, the server can check the value against wrong
encodings of the checkmark character and detect that a query string
or `application/x-www-form-urlencoded` body was *not* sent as
utf-8, eg. if the form had an `accept-charset` parameter or the
containing page had a different character set.
**qs** supports this mechanism via the `charsetSentinel` option.
If specified, the `utf8` parameter will be omitted from the
returned object. It will be used to switch to `iso-8859-1`/`utf-8`
mode depending on how the checkmark is encoded.
**Important**: When you specify both the `charset` option and the
`charsetSentinel` option, the `charset` will be overridden when
the request contains a `utf8` parameter from which the actual
charset can be deduced. In that sense the `charset` will behave
as the default charset rather than the authoritative charset.
```javascript
var detectedAsUtf8 = qs.parse('utf8=%E2%9C%93&a=%C3%B8', {
charset: 'iso-8859-1',
charsetSentinel: true
});
assert.deepEqual(detectedAsUtf8, { a: 'ø' });
// Browsers encode the checkmark as ✓ when submitting as iso-8859-1:
var detectedAsIso8859_1 = qs.parse('utf8=%26%2310003%3B&a=%F8', {
charset: 'utf-8',
charsetSentinel: true
});
assert.deepEqual(detectedAsIso8859_1, { a: 'ø' });
```
If you want to decode the `&#...;` syntax to the actual character,
you can specify the `interpretNumericEntities` option as well:
```javascript
var detectedAsIso8859_1 = qs.parse('a=%26%239786%3B', {
charset: 'iso-8859-1',
interpretNumericEntities: true
});
assert.deepEqual(detectedAsIso8859_1, { a: '☺' });
```
It also works when the charset has been detected in `charsetSentinel`
mode.
### Parsing Arrays
**qs** can also parse arrays using a similar `[]` notation:
```javascript
var withArray = qs.parse('a[]=b&a[]=c');
assert.deepEqual(withArray, { a: ['b', 'c'] });
```
You may specify an index as well:
```javascript
var withIndexes = qs.parse('a[1]=c&a[0]=b');
assert.deepEqual(withIndexes, { a: ['b', 'c'] });
```
Note that the only difference between an index in an array and a key in an object is that the value between the brackets must be a number
to create an array. When creating arrays with specific indices, **qs** will compact a sparse array to only the existing values preserving
their order:
```javascript
var noSparse = qs.parse('a[1]=b&a[15]=c');
assert.deepEqual(noSparse, { a: ['b', 'c'] });
```
Note that an empty string is also a value, and will be preserved:
```javascript
var withEmptyString = qs.parse('a[]=&a[]=b');
assert.deepEqual(withEmptyString, { a: ['', 'b'] });
var withIndexedEmptyString = qs.parse('a[0]=b&a[1]=&a[2]=c');
assert.deepEqual(withIndexedEmptyString, { a: ['b', '', 'c'] });
```
**qs** will also limit specifying indices in an array to a maximum index of `20`. Any array members with an index of greater than `20` will
instead be converted to an object with the index as the key. This is needed to handle cases when someone sent, for example, `a[999999999]` and it will take significant time to iterate over this huge array.
```j