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
There are plenty of libraries that can help you with URI building (don't reinvent the wheel). Here are three to get you started:
import javax.ws.rs.core.UriBuilder;
...
return UriBuilder.fromUri(url).queryParam(key, value).build();
import org.apache.http.client.utils.URIBuilder;
...
return new URIBuilder(url).addParameter(key, value).build();
import org.springframework.web.util.UriComponentsBuilder;
...
return UriComponentsBuilder.fromUriString(url).queryParam(key, value).build().toUri();
See also: GIST > URI Builder Tests