How to get the ? at the end of URL when there are no query parameters

Question

I am trying to get the complete URL from HttpServletRequest object. I got various ways of doing it. One of the way is to combine the requestURL with queryString. My situation is that there is a ? at the end with no query params. How do I identify that my URL has a ? at the end.

The URL is something like : http://www.xyz.com/path/id?

I need to consider ? as part of the id. (Client requirement :))

The code I am trying is:

public static String getFullURL(HttpServletRequest request) {
StringBuffer requestURL = request.getRequestURL();
String queryString = request.getQueryString();

if (queryString == null) {
    return requestURL.toString();
} else {
    return requestURL.append('?').append(queryString).toString();
}
}

I have edited my question to reflect the requirement. It's a client thing. — Rahul Bansal, Jul 18 '13 at 18:58
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2222238/httpservletrequest-to-complete-url — Josh Lee, Jul 18 '13 at 19:01
How do I identify that my URL has a ? at the end. `if (requestUrl.toString().endsWith("?"))` — Rasoul Taheri, Jul 18 '13 at 19:17
Why? If there are no query parameters a trailing ? is meaningless. Any element in the system between you and the client is entitled to remove it. — user207421, Jul 18 '13 at 21:46
I understand that it is not required to achieve any functionality. I also know it is a strange requirement. But there should be a way of getting to know the exact URL passed. If there is any, please share. — Rahul Bansal, Jul 19 '13 at 08:43

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 18 '13 at 19:08

In this case it will not add extra ? at end if return queryString is null or empty.

if (queryString != null && !queryString.trim().equals("")) {
  return requestURL.append('?').append(queryString).toString();    
} else {
  return requestURL.toString();    
}

How do I identify that my URL has a ? at the end. For this you can check

 if (queryString == null || queryString.trim().equals("")) {
   In this case just check requestUrl last char. //String data = requestUrl.substring(0, requestUrl.length-1);
   check data has "?"
 }

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 01 '13 at 00:12

I believe the difference you are looking for is this:

When a url does not have a question mark, the request.getQueryString() result will be null.

When a url ends with a question mark but has no query string, the request.getQueryString() result will be an empty string or "".

So, you should be able to check like this:

String queryString = request.getQueryString();
if (queryString == null) {
    // There was no question mark. React accordingly.
} else if ("".equals(queryString)) {
    // The URL ended with a question mark and had no query parameters. React accordingly.
} else {
    // The URL ended with a question mark AND parameters. React accordingly.
}

Thanks for your reply. But it didn't work out. I am using Apache Tomcat 6.0.29 — Rahul Bansal, Nov 13 '13 at 12:40
Interesting. I tested this on JDK 7 and Tomcat 7, so yeah maybe it doesn't work with 6. Sorry about that. — MattSenter, Nov 13 '13 at 15:34

How to get the ? at the end of URL when there are no query parameters

2 Answers2