Crate serde_qs

Serde support for querystring-style strings

Querystrings are not formally defined and loosely take the form of nested urlencoded queries.

This library aims for compatability with the syntax of qs and also of the Rack::Utils::parse_nested_query implementation.

For users who do not require nested URL parameters, it is highly recommended that the serde_urlencoded crate is used instead, which will almost certainly perform better for deserializing simple inputs.

Supported Types

At the top level, serde_qs only supports struct, map, and enum. These are the only top-level structs which can be de/serialized since Querystrings rely on having a (key, value) pair for each field, which necessitates this kind of structure.

However, after the top level you should find all supported types can be de/serialized.

Note that integer keys are reserved for array indices. That is, a string of the form a[0]=1&a[1]=3 will deserialize to the ordered sequence a = [1,3].

Usage

See the examples folder for a more detailed introduction.

Serializing/Deserializing is designed to work with maps and structs.

#[macro_use]
extern crate serde_derive;
extern crate serde_qs as qs;

#[derive(Debug, PartialEq, Deserialize, Serialize)]
struct Address {
    city: String,
    postcode: String,
}
#[derive(Debug, PartialEq, Deserialize, Serialize)]
struct QueryParams {
    id: u8,
    name: String,
    address: Address,
    phone: u32,
    user_ids: Vec<u8>,
}

let params = QueryParams {
    id: 42,
    name: "Acme".to_string(),
    phone: 12345,
    address: Address {
        city: "Carrot City".to_string(),
        postcode: "12345".to_string(),
    },
    user_ids: vec![1, 2, 3, 4],
};
let rec_params: QueryParams = qs::from_str("\
    name=Acme&id=42&phone=12345&address[postcode]=12345&\
    address[city]=Carrot+City&user_ids[0]=1&user_ids[1]=2&\
    user_ids[2]=3&user_ids[3]=4")
    .unwrap();
assert_eq!(rec_params, params);

Strict vs Non-Strict modes

serde_qs supports two operating modes, which can be specified using Config. Strict mode has two parts:

• how serde_qs handles square brackets
• how serde_qs handles invalid UTF-8 percent decoded characters

Square Brackets

Technically, square brackets should be encoded in URLs as %5B and %5D. However, they are often used in their raw format to specify querystrings such as a[b]=123.

In strict mode, serde_qs will only tolerate unencoded square brackets to denote nested keys. So a[b]=123 will decode as {"a": {"b": 123}}. This means that encoded square brackets can actually be part of the key. a[b%5Bc%5D]=123 becomes {"a": {"b[c]": 123}}.

However, since some implementations will automatically encode everything in the URL, we also have a non-strict mode. This means that serde_qs will assume that any encoded square brackets in the string were meant to be taken as nested keys. From the example before, a[b%5Bc%5D]=123 will now become {"a": {"b": {"c": 123 }}}.

Non-strict mode can be useful when, as said before, some middleware automatically encodes the brackets. But care must be taken to avoid using keys with square brackets in them, or unexpected things can happen.

Invalid UTF-8 Percent Encodings

Sometimes querystrings may have percent-encoded data which does not decode to UTF-8. In some cases it is useful for this to cause errors, which is how serde_qs works in strict mode (the default). Whereas in other cases it can be useful to just replace such data with the unicode replacement character (� U+FFFD), which is how serde_qs works in non-strict mode.

Flatten workaround

A current known limitation in serde is deserializing #[serde(flatten)] structs for formats which are not self-describing. This includes query strings: 12 can be an integer or a string, for example.

We suggest the following workaround:

extern crate serde;
#[macro_use]
extern crate serde_derive;
extern crate serde_qs as qs;
extern crate serde_with;

use serde_with::{serde_as, DisplayFromStr};

#[derive(Deserialize, Serialize, Debug, PartialEq)]
struct Query {
    a: u8,
    #[serde(flatten)]
    common: CommonParams,
}

#[serde_as]
#[derive(Deserialize, Serialize, Debug, PartialEq)]
struct CommonParams {
    #[serde_as(as = "DisplayFromStr")]
    limit: u64,
    #[serde_as(as = "DisplayFromStr")]
    offset: u64,
    #[serde_as(as = "DisplayFromStr")]
    remaining: bool,
}

fn main() {
    let params = "a=1&limit=100&offset=50&remaining=true";
    let query = Query { a: 1, common: CommonParams { limit: 100, offset: 50, remaining: true } };
    let rec_query: Result<Query, _> = qs::from_str(params);
    assert_eq!(rec_query.unwrap(), query);
}

Use with actix_web extractors

The actix4, actix3 or actix2 features enable the use of serde_qs::actix::QsQuery, which is a direct substitute for the actix_web::Query and can be used as an extractor:

fn index(info: QsQuery<Info>) -> Result<String> {
    Ok(format!("Welcome {}!", info.username))
}

Support for actix-web 4.0 is available via the actix4 feature. Support for actix-web 3.0 is available via the actix3 feature. Support for actix-web 2.0 is available via the actix2 feature.

Use with warp filters

The warp feature enables the use of serde_qs::warp::query(), which is a substitute for the warp::query::query() filter and can be used like this:

serde_qs::warp::query(Config::default())
    .and_then(|info| async move {
        Ok::<_, Rejection>(format!("Welcome {}!", info.username))
    })
    .recover(serde_qs::warp::recover_fn);

Modules

• actix
  Functionality for using serde_qs with actix_web.
• warp
  Functionality for using serde_qs with warp.

Structs

• Config
  To override the default serialization parameters, first construct a new Config.
• Deserializer
  A deserializer for the querystring format.
• Serializer

Enums

• Error
  Error type for serde_qs.

Functions

• from_bytes
  Deserializes a querystring from a &[u8].
• from_str
  Deserializes a querystring from a &str.
• to_string
  Serializes a value into a querystring.
• to_writer
  Serializes a value into a generic writer object.