[whatwg] Making URLSearchParams set() `value` argument optional

[Simon Sapin]

On 12/03/2014 10:04, David Håsäther wrote:
> I would like to propose making the `value` argument optional for
> URLSearchParams set()[1]. This would work as set("name", ""), but
> would not output the equals sign, leading to nicer URLs.
>
> So:
>
> set("name", "") -> "?name="
> set("name") -> "?name"
>
> Anne van Kesteren pointed out[2] that this is different from the
> application/x-www-form-urlencoded serialization on which it currently
> relies on. I'm not sure if that has any implications.
>
> [1]http://url.spec.whatwg.org/#dom-urlsearchparams-set
> [2]https://twitter.com/annevk/status/443576248166391808

Currently the application/x-www-form-urlencoded serializer takes a list 
of name-value pairs, where the name and the value are implied to be 
strings. We could change it to accept values that are null as well as 
strings. A pair with a null value would be serialized as just the name, 
without the equal sign.

So you could end up with  ?name1=value1&name2&name3=value3

HTML forms would just provide lists of pairs that never happen to 
include a null value.


The parser currently emits an empty strings when the input is missing an 
equal sign for a given pair. Assuming the above, I don’t know if it 
should be changed to emit a null value.

-- 
Simon Sapin