How to handle req.params.url when url contains "://"?

Question

I am trying to write a program using ExpressJS. The user should be able to send me an url. But there is an issue. It doesn't work because the user send me the url with an url (using XMLHTTPRequest).

How can I handle urls and get methods which contain an url ? Thank you

You need to provide a [mcve]. There's nothing about the characters `://` which prevent them being sent through most of the common ways that use HTTP. — Quentin, Mar 10 '19 at 17:08
The user will send to the server something like that : website.com/create/https://www.google.com But there is an issue, because the "https://www.google.com" parameter contains "://" — Des2207, Mar 10 '19 at 17:08
Do you mean using a path parameter like /submitUrl/:url ? Have you tried using escaped query parameters? — moronator, Mar 10 '19 at 17:09
@moronatorYes I mean that. How to do an escaped query parameters ? — Des2207, Mar 10 '19 at 17:10
The client needs to URL escape everything they're putting in the URL. — jonrsharpe, Mar 10 '19 at 17:11
Read the docs for whatever client you're using. My point is it's not Express's job. — jonrsharpe, Mar 10 '19 at 17:15

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 10 '19 at 17:15

You may want to use query parameters instead of url parameters. This would look like so:

http://youhosthere.com/submitUrl/?url=THE_URL_TO_SUBMIT

However this also means, the user has to escape the url he wants to submit. In Javascript for example this can be done by using encodeURIComponent:

encodeURIComponent('THE_URL_TO_SUBMIT')

For further information on encodeURIComponent, you may want to read the mozilla article

With express you can read the query params using req.query.YOUR_QUERY_PARAM as proposed by Marcus Granström here

How to handle req.params.url when url contains "://"?

1 Answers1