How can I append a query parameter to an existing URL?

Question

I\'d like to append key-value pair as a query parameter to an existing URL. While I could do this by checking for the existence of whether the URL has a query part or a frag

Answer 1

This can be done by using the java.net.URI class to construct a new instance using the parts from an existing one, this should ensure it conforms to URI syntax.

The query part will either be null or an existing string, so you can decide to append another parameter with & or start a new query.

public class StackOverflow26177749 {

    public static URI appendUri(String uri, String appendQuery) throws URISyntaxException {
        URI oldUri = new URI(uri);

        String newQuery = oldUri.getQuery();
        if (newQuery == null) {
            newQuery = appendQuery;
        } else {
            newQuery += "&" + appendQuery;  
        }

        return new URI(oldUri.getScheme(), oldUri.getAuthority(),
                oldUri.getPath(), newQuery, oldUri.getFragment());
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        System.out.println(appendUri("http://example.com", "name=John"));
        System.out.println(appendUri("http://example.com#fragment", "name=John"));
        System.out.println(appendUri("http://example.com?email=john.doe@email.com", "name=John"));
        System.out.println(appendUri("http://example.com?email=john.doe@email.com#fragment", "name=John"));
    }
}

Shorter alternative

public static URI appendUri(String uri, String appendQuery) throws URISyntaxException {
    URI oldUri = new URI(uri);
    return new URI(oldUri.getScheme(), oldUri.getAuthority(), oldUri.getPath(),
            oldUri.getQuery() == null ? appendQuery : oldUri.getQuery() + "&" + appendQuery, oldUri.getFragment());
}

Output

http://example.com?name=John
http://example.com?name=John#fragment
http://example.com?email=john.doe@email.com&name=John
http://example.com?email=john.doe@email.com&name=John#fragment