Spaces in url query not getting decoded in django

Question

I have the following URL query -

http://localhost:8000/api/passenger-census/?public_location_description==SW%206th%20&%20Salmon

however, the spaces are not being decoded and the resulting query that django parses is

GET /api/passenger-census/?public_location_description=SW%206th%20&%20Salmon

which returns a null since the string to be found is "SW 6th & Salmon".

Django code

views.py -

class PassengerCensusViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):

    queryset = PassengerCensus.objects.all()
    serializer_class = PassengerCensusSerializer
    filter_backends = (SearchFilter,DjangoFilterBackend,OrderingFilter,)
    search_fields = ('route_number', 'direction','service_key','stop_seq',
                     'location_id','public_location_description',)
    filter_fields = ('summary_begin_date','route_number','direction','service_key','stop_seq','location_id',
                    'public_location_description','ons','offs','x_coord','y_coord','geom_2913','geom_4326',)
    ordering_fields = '__all__'

serializer.py

class PassengerCensusSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):

    class Meta:
        model = PassengerCensus
        fields = '__all__'

What is the issue here?

How sure are you that the problem isn't the unescaped ampersand? — LinuxDisciple
– LinuxDisciple, Commented Mar 13, 2018 at 23:00
You have encoded your parameter wrong. Querystring parameters (as opposed to path elements) should be encoded by replacing spaces by +, not %20. — Daniel Roseman
– Daniel Roseman, Commented Mar 14, 2018 at 7:49

LinuxDisciple · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-13 23:05:15Z

2

The spaces aren't the issue, your ampersand is the problem. Ampersand is the separator between the different parameters, which are name=value pairs.

Parsing your query string results in:

A name of public_location_description with a value of =SW%206th%20
and %20Salmon with no value.

Escape your ampersand by replacing it with %26 (and remove the redundant '=') to get a url of:

http://localhost:8000/api/passenger-census/?public_location_description=SW%206th%20%26%20Salmon

and try it again

answered Mar 13, 2018 at 23:05

LinuxDisciple

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2 Comments

user3588841 Over a year ago

how do I have Django escape an ampersand automatically when a user enters a '&' in a query parameter?

LinuxDisciple Over a year ago

URLs are not made for human input. That's what HTML forms are for.

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