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Available in 11 languages" > <label id="p-lang-btn-label" for="p-lang-btn-checkbox" class="vector-dropdown-label cdx-button cdx-button--fake-button cdx-button--fake-button--enabled cdx-button--weight-quiet cdx-button--action-progressive mw-portlet-lang-heading-11" aria-hidden="true" ><span class="vector-icon mw-ui-icon-language-progressive mw-ui-icon-wikimedia-language-progressive"></span> <span class="vector-dropdown-label-text">11 languages</span> </label> <div class="vector-dropdown-content"> <div class="vector-menu-content"> <ul class="vector-menu-content-list"> <li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ar mw-list-item"><a href="https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%B9%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85" title="سلسلة استعلام – Arabic" lang="ar" hreflang="ar" data-title="سلسلة استعلام" data-language-autonym="العربية" data-language-local-name="Arabic" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>العربية</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-cs mw-list-item"><a href="https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%98et%C4%9Bzec_dotazu" title="Řetězec dotazu – Czech" lang="cs" hreflang="cs" data-title="Řetězec dotazu" data-language-autonym="Čeština" data-language-local-name="Czech" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>Čeština</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-de mw-list-item"><a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query-String" title="Query-String – German" lang="de" hreflang="de" data-title="Query-String" data-language-autonym="Deutsch" data-language-local-name="German" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>Deutsch</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-et mw-list-item"><a href="https://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A4ringus%C3%B5ne" title="Päringusõne – Estonian" lang="et" hreflang="et" data-title="Päringusõne" data-language-autonym="Eesti" data-language-local-name="Estonian" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>Eesti</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-es mw-list-item"><a href="https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadena_de_consulta" title="Cadena de consulta – Spanish" lang="es" hreflang="es" data-title="Cadena de consulta" data-language-autonym="Español" data-language-local-name="Spanish" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>Español</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-fr mw-list-item"><a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cha%C3%AEne_de_requ%C3%AAte" title="Chaîne de requête – French" lang="fr" hreflang="fr" data-title="Chaîne de requête" data-language-autonym="Français" data-language-local-name="French" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>Français</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-id mw-list-item"><a href="https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untai_kueri" title="Untai kueri – Indonesian" lang="id" hreflang="id" data-title="Untai kueri" data-language-autonym="Bahasa Indonesia" data-language-local-name="Indonesian" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>Bahasa Indonesia</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-it mw-list-item"><a href="https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query_string" title="Query string – Italian" lang="it" hreflang="it" data-title="Query string" data-language-autonym="Italiano" data-language-local-name="Italian" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>Italiano</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-nl mw-list-item"><a href="https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Querystring" title="Querystring – Dutch" lang="nl" hreflang="nl" data-title="Querystring" data-language-autonym="Nederlands" data-language-local-name="Dutch" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>Nederlands</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-vi mw-list-item"><a href="https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu%E1%BB%97i_truy_v%E1%BA%A5n" title="Chuỗi truy vấn – Vietnamese" lang="vi" hreflang="vi" data-title="Chuỗi truy vấn" data-language-autonym="Tiếng Việt" data-language-local-name="Vietnamese" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>Tiếng Việt</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link 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class="mw-body-content"><div class="mw-content-ltr mw-parser-output" lang="en" dir="ltr"><div class="shortdescription nomobile noexcerpt noprint searchaux" style="display:none">Part of a URL that assigns values to specified parameters</div> <p>A <b>query string</b> is a part of a uniform resource locator (<a href="/wiki/URL" title="URL">URL</a>) that assigns values to specified parameters. A query string commonly includes fields added to a base URL by a Web browser or other client application, for example as part of an HTML document, choosing the appearance of a page, or jumping to positions in multimedia content. </p> <figure class="mw-halign-center" typeof="mw:File/Frame"><a href="/wiki/File:Query_string.png" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Query_string.png" decoding="async" width="518" height="29" class="mw-file-element" data-file-width="518" data-file-height="29" /></a><figcaption>An <a href="/wiki/Address_bar" title="Address bar">address bar</a> on <a href="/wiki/Google_Chrome" title="Google Chrome">Google Chrome</a> showing a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) with the query string <code>?title=Query_string&action=edit</code></figcaption></figure> <p>A web server can handle a <a href="/wiki/HTTPS" title="HTTPS">Hypertext Transfer Protocol</a> (HTTP) request either by reading a file from its <a href="/wiki/File_system" title="File system">file system</a> based on the <a href="/wiki/URL" title="URL">URL</a> path or by handling the request using logic that is specific to the type of resource. In cases where special logic is invoked, the query string will be available to that logic for use in its processing, along with the path component of the URL. </p> <meta property="mw:PageProp/toc" /> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Structure">Structure</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Query_string&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: Structure"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div><p> A typical URL containing a query string is as follows:<style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1244412712">.mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 32px}.mw-parser-output .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;margin-top:0}@media(min-width:500px){.mw-parser-output .templatequotecite{padding-left:1.6em}}</style></p><blockquote class="templatequote"><p><code>https://example.com/over/there?name=ferret</code></p></blockquote> <p>When a server receives a request for such a page, it may run a program, passing the query string, which in this case is <code>name=ferret</code>, unchanged to the program. The question mark is used as a separator, and is not part of the query string.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p><a href="/wiki/Web_Framework" class="mw-redirect" title="Web Framework">Web frameworks</a> may provide methods for parsing multiple parameters in the query string, separated by some delimiter.<sup id="cite_ref-w3c-recom_3-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-w3c-recom-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> In the example URL below, multiple query parameters are separated by the <a href="/wiki/Ampersand" title="Ampersand">ampersand</a>, "<code>&</code>": </p> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1244412712" /><blockquote class="templatequote"><p><code>https://example.com/path/to/page?name=ferret&color=purple</code></p></blockquote> <p>The exact structure of the query string is not standardized. Methods used to parse the query string may differ between websites. </p><p>A link in a web page may have a URL that contains a query string. <a href="/wiki/HTML" title="HTML">HTML</a> defines three ways a user agent can generate the query string: </p> <ul><li>an <a href="/wiki/Form_(HTML)" class="mw-redirect" title="Form (HTML)">HTML form</a> via the <code class="nowrap" style=""><form>...</form></code> element</li> <li>a <a href="/wiki/Image_map#Server-side" title="Image map">server-side image map</a> via the <code class="mw-highlight mw-highlight-lang-text mw-content-ltr" style="" dir="ltr">ismap</code> attribute on the <code class="nowrap" style=""><img></code> element with an <code class="nowrap" style=""><img ismap></code> construction</li> <li>an indexed search via the now deprecated <code class="nowrap" style=""><isindex></code> element</li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Web_forms">Web forms</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Query_string&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: Web forms"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>One of the original uses was to contain the content of an <a href="/wiki/Form_(HTML)" class="mw-redirect" title="Form (HTML)">HTML form</a>, also known as web form. In particular, when a form containing the fields <code>field1</code>, <code>field2</code>, <code>field3</code> is submitted, the content of the fields is encoded as a query string as follows: </p> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1244412712" /><blockquote class="templatequote"><p><code>field1=value1&field2=value2&field3=value3...</code></p></blockquote> <ul><li>The query string is composed of a series of field-value pairs.</li> <li>Within each pair, the field name and value are separated by an <a href="/wiki/Equals_sign" title="Equals sign">equals sign</a>, "<code>=</code>".</li> <li>The series of pairs is separated by the <a href="/wiki/Ampersand" title="Ampersand">ampersand</a>, "<code>&</code>" (<a href="/wiki/Semicolons" class="mw-redirect" title="Semicolons">semicolons</a> "<code>;</code>" are not recommended by the <a href="/wiki/W3C" class="mw-redirect" title="W3C">W3C</a> anymore, see below).</li></ul> <p>While there is no definitive standard, most <a href="/wiki/Web_framework" title="Web framework">web frameworks</a> allow multiple values to be associated with a single field (e.g. <code>field1=value1&field1=value2&field2=value3</code>).<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-4"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>4<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-5"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>5<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>For each <a href="/wiki/Field_(computer_science)" title="Field (computer science)">field</a> of the form, the query string contains a pair <code><var>field</var>=<var>value</var></code>. Web forms may include fields that are not visible to the user; these fields are included in the query string when the form is submitted. </p><p>This convention is a <a href="/wiki/W3C" class="mw-redirect" title="W3C">W3C</a> recommendation.<sup id="cite_ref-w3c-recom_3-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-w3c-recom-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> In the recommendations of 1999, W3C recommended that all web servers support <a href="/wiki/Semicolon" title="Semicolon">semicolon</a> separators in addition to <a href="/wiki/Ampersand" title="Ampersand">ampersand</a> separators<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-6"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>6<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> to allow <a href="/wiki/Application/x-www-form-urlencoded" class="mw-redirect" title="Application/x-www-form-urlencoded">application/x-www-form-urlencoded</a> query strings in URLs within HTML documents without having to entity escape ampersands. Since 2014, W3C recommends to use only <a href="/wiki/Ampersand" title="Ampersand">ampersand</a> as query separator.<sup id="cite_ref-w3c-recom-2014_7-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-w3c-recom-2014-7"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>7<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>The form content is only encoded in the URL's query string when the form submission method is <a href="/wiki/GET_(HTTP)" class="mw-redirect" title="GET (HTTP)">GET</a>. The same encoding is used by default when the submission method is <a href="/wiki/POST_(HTTP)" title="POST (HTTP)">POST</a>, but the result is submitted as the <a href="/wiki/HTTP_request" class="mw-redirect" title="HTTP request">HTTP request</a> body rather than being included in a modified URL.<sup id="cite_ref-html5_8-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-html5-8"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>8<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Indexed_search">Indexed search</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Query_string&action=edit&section=3" title="Edit section: Indexed search"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>Before <a href="/wiki/Form_(HTML)" class="mw-redirect" title="Form (HTML)">forms</a> were added to HTML, browsers rendered the –<code class="nowrap" style=""><isindex></code> element as a single-line text-input control. The text entered into this control was sent to the server as a query string addition to a <a href="/wiki/GET_(HTTP)" class="mw-redirect" title="GET (HTTP)">GET</a> request for the base URL or another URL specified by the <code class="mw-highlight mw-highlight-lang-text mw-content-ltr" style="" dir="ltr">action</code> attribute.<sup id="cite_ref-9" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-9"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>9<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> This was intended to allow web servers to use the provided text as query criteria so they could return a list of matching pages.<sup id="cite_ref-10" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-10"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>10<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>When the text input into the indexed search control is submitted, it is encoded as a query string as follows: </p> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1244412712" /><blockquote class="templatequote"><p><code>argument1+argument2+argument3...</code></p></blockquote> <ul><li>The query string is composed of a series of arguments by parsing the text into words at the spaces.</li> <li>The series is separated by the <a href="/wiki/Plus_sign" class="mw-redirect" title="Plus sign">plus sign</a>, '<code>+</code>'.</li></ul> <p>Though the <code class="nowrap" style=""><isindex></code> element is deprecated and most browsers no longer support or render it, there are still some vestiges of indexed search in existence. For example, this is the source of the special handling of <a href="/wiki/Plus_sign" class="mw-redirect" title="Plus sign">plus sign</a>, '<code>+</code>' within browser URL percent encoding (which today, with the deprecation of indexed search, is all but redundant with <code>%20</code>). Also some web servers supporting <a href="/wiki/Common_Gateway_Interface" title="Common Gateway Interface">CGI</a> (e.g., <a href="/wiki/Apache_HTTP_Server" title="Apache HTTP Server">Apache</a>) will process the query string into command line arguments if it does not contain an <a href="/wiki/Equals_sign" title="Equals sign">equals sign</a>, '<code>=</code>' (as per section 4.4 of CGI 1.1). Some CGI scripts still depend on and use this historic behavior for URLs embedded in HTML. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="URL_encoding">URL encoding</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Query_string&action=edit&section=4" title="Edit section: URL encoding"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1236090951">.mw-parser-output .hatnote{font-style:italic}.mw-parser-output div.hatnote{padding-left:1.6em;margin-bottom:0.5em}.mw-parser-output .hatnote i{font-style:normal}.mw-parser-output .hatnote+link+.hatnote{margin-top:-0.5em}@media print{body.ns-0 .mw-parser-output .hatnote{display:none!important}}</style><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">Main article: <a href="/wiki/Percent-encoding" title="Percent-encoding">Percent-encoding</a></div> <p>Some <a href="/wiki/Character_(computing)" title="Character (computing)">characters</a> cannot be part of a URL (for example, the space) and some other characters have a special meaning in a URL: for example, the character <code>#</code> can be used to further specify a subsection (or <a href="/wiki/Fragment_identifier" class="mw-redirect" title="Fragment identifier">fragment</a>) of a document. In HTML forms, the character <code>=</code> is used to separate a name from a value. The URI generic syntax uses <a href="/wiki/Percent-encoding#Percent-encoding_reserved_characters" title="Percent-encoding">URL encoding</a> to deal with this problem, while HTML forms make some additional substitutions rather than applying percent encoding for all such characters. SPACE is encoded as '<code>+</code>' or "<code>%20</code>".<sup id="cite_ref-w3schools_11-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-w3schools-11"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>11<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p><a href="/wiki/HTML_5" class="mw-redirect" title="HTML 5">HTML 5</a> specifies the following transformation for submitting HTML forms with the "GET" method to a web server. The following is a brief summary of the algorithm: </p> <ul><li>Characters that cannot be converted to the correct charset are replaced with HTML <a href="/wiki/Numeric_character_reference" title="Numeric character reference">numeric character references</a><sup id="cite_ref-html5_urlencoded_12-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-html5_urlencoded-12"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>12<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup></li> <li>SPACE is encoded as '<code>+</code>' or '<code>%20</code>'</li> <li>Letters (<code>A</code>–<code>Z</code> and <code>a</code>–<code>z</code>), numbers (<code>0</code>–<code>9</code>) and the characters '<code>~</code>','<code>-</code>','<code>.</code>' and '<code>_</code>' are left as-is</li> <li><code>+</code> is encoded by %2B</li> <li>All other characters are encoded as a <code>%HH</code> <a href="/wiki/Hexadecimal" title="Hexadecimal">hexadecimal</a> representation with any non-ASCII characters first encoded as UTF-8 (or other specified encoding)</li></ul> <p>The octet corresponding to the tilde ("<code>~</code>") is permitted in query strings by RFC3986 but required to be percent-encoded in HTML forms to "<code>%7E</code>". </p><p>The encoding of SPACE as '<code>+</code>' and the selection of "as-is" characters distinguishes this encoding from RFC 3986. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Example">Example</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Query_string&action=edit&section=5" title="Edit section: Example"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>If a <a href="/wiki/Form_(web)" class="mw-redirect" title="Form (web)">form</a> is embedded in an <a href="/wiki/HTML" title="HTML">HTML</a> page as follows: </p> <div class="mw-highlight mw-highlight-lang-html mw-content-ltr" dir="ltr"><pre><span></span><span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">form</span> <span class="na">action</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"/cgi-bin/test.cgi"</span> <span class="na">method</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"get"</span><span class="p">></span> <span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">input</span> <span class="na">type</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"text"</span> <span class="na">name</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"first"</span> <span class="p">/></span> <span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">input</span> <span class="na">type</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"text"</span> <span class="na">name</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"second"</span> <span class="p">/></span> <span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">input</span> <span class="na">type</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"submit"</span> <span class="p">/></span> <span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">form</span><span class="p">></span> </pre></div> <p>and the user inserts the strings "this is a field" and "was it clear (already)?" in the two <a href="/wiki/Text_box" title="Text box">text fields</a> and presses the submit button, the program <code>test.cgi</code> (the program specified by the <code>action</code> <a href="/wiki/HTML_attribute" title="HTML attribute">attribute</a> of the <code>form</code> <a href="/wiki/HTML_element" title="HTML element">element</a> in the above example) will receive the following query string: <code>first=this+is+a+field&second=was+it+clear+%28already%29%3F</code>. </p><p>If the form is processed on the <a href="/wiki/Web_server" title="Web server">server</a> by a <a href="/wiki/Common_Gateway_Interface" title="Common Gateway Interface">CGI</a> <a href="/wiki/Scripting_language" title="Scripting language">script</a>, the script may typically receive the query string as an <a href="/wiki/Environment_variable" title="Environment variable">environment variable</a> named <code>QUERY_STRING</code>. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Tracking">Tracking</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Query_string&action=edit&section=6" title="Edit section: Tracking"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>A program receiving a query string can ignore part or all of it. If the requested URL corresponds to a file and not to a program, the whole query string is ignored. However, regardless of whether the query string is used or not, the whole URL including it is stored in the server <a href="/wiki/Computer_data_logging" class="mw-redirect" title="Computer data logging">log files</a>. </p><p>These facts allow query strings to be used to track users in a manner similar to that provided by <a href="/wiki/HTTP_cookie" title="HTTP cookie">HTTP cookies</a>. For this to work, every time the user downloads a page, a unique identifier must be chosen and added as a query string to the URLs of all links the page contains. As soon as the user follows one of these links, the corresponding URL is requested to the server. This way, the download of this page is linked with the previous one. </p><p>For example, when a web page containing the following is requested: </p> <div class="mw-highlight mw-highlight-lang-html mw-content-ltr" dir="ltr"><pre><span></span> <span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">a</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"foo.html"</span><span class="p">></span>see my page!<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">a</span><span class="p">></span> <span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">a</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"bar.html"</span><span class="p">></span>mine is better<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">a</span><span class="p">></span> </pre></div> <p>a unique string, such as <code>e0a72cb2a2c7</code> is chosen, and the page is modified as follows: </p> <div class="mw-highlight mw-highlight-lang-html mw-content-ltr" dir="ltr"><pre><span></span> <span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">a</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"foo.html?e0a72cb2a2c7"</span><span class="p">></span>see my page!<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">a</span><span class="p">></span> <span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">a</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"bar.html?e0a72cb2a2c7"</span><span class="p">></span>mine is better<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">a</span><span class="p">></span> </pre></div> <p>The addition of the query string does not change the way the page is shown to the user. When the user follows, for example, the first link, the browser requests the page <code>foo.html?e0a72cb2a2c7</code> to the server, which ignores what follows <code>?</code> and sends the page <code>foo.html</code> as expected, adding the query string to its links as well. </p><p>This way, any subsequent page request from this user will carry the same query string <code>e0a72cb2a2c7</code>, making it possible to establish that all these pages have been viewed by the same user. Query strings are often used in association with <a href="/wiki/Web_beacon" title="Web beacon">web beacons</a>. </p><p>The main differences between query strings used for tracking and HTTP cookies are that: </p> <ol><li>Query strings form part of the URL, and are therefore included if the user saves or sends the URL to another user; cookies can be maintained across browsing sessions, but are not saved or sent with the URL.</li> <li>If the user arrives at the same web server by two (or more) independent paths, it will be assigned two different query strings, while the stored cookies are the same.</li> <li>The user can disable cookies, in which case using cookies for tracking does not work. However, using query strings for tracking should work in all situations.</li> <li>Different query strings passed by different visits to the page will mean that the pages are never served from the browser (or proxy, if present) cache thereby increasing the load on the web server and slowing down the user experience.</li></ol> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Compatibility_issues">Compatibility issues</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Query_string&action=edit&section=7" title="Edit section: Compatibility issues"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>According to the <a href="/wiki/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol" class="mw-redirect" title="Hypertext Transfer Protocol">HTTP</a> specification: </p> <blockquote><p>Various ad hoc limitations on request-line length are found in practice. It is RECOMMENDED that all HTTP senders and recipients support, at a minimum, request-line lengths of 8000 octets.<sup id="cite_ref-13" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-13"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>13<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup></p></blockquote> <p>If the URL is too long, the web server fails with the <a href="/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes#414" title="List of HTTP status codes">414 Request-URI Too Long</a> HTTP status code. </p><p>The common workaround for these problems is to use <a href="/wiki/POST_(HTTP)" title="POST (HTTP)">POST</a> instead of <a href="/wiki/GET_(HTTP)" class="mw-redirect" title="GET (HTTP)">GET</a> and store the parameters in the request body. The length limits on request bodies are typically much higher than those on URL length. For example, the limit on POST size, by default, is 2 MB on IIS 4.0 and 128 KB on IIS 5.0. The limit is configurable on Apache2 using the <code>LimitRequestBody</code> directive, which specifies the number of bytes from 0 (meaning unlimited) to 2147483647 (2 GB) that are allowed in a request body.<sup id="cite_ref-14" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-14"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>14<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="See_also">See also</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Query_string&action=edit&section=8" title="Edit section: See also"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1184024115">.mw-parser-output .div-col{margin-top:0.3em;column-width:30em}.mw-parser-output .div-col-small{font-size:90%}.mw-parser-output .div-col-rules{column-rule:1px solid #aaa}.mw-parser-output .div-col dl,.mw-parser-output .div-col ol,.mw-parser-output .div-col ul{margin-top:0}.mw-parser-output .div-col li,.mw-parser-output .div-col dd{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}</style><div class="div-col"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Clean_URL" title="Clean URL">Clean URL</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/DoubleClick_Click_Identifier" class="mw-redirect" title="DoubleClick Click Identifier">Click identifier</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Common_Gateway_Interface" title="Common Gateway Interface">Common Gateway Interface</a> (CGI)</li> <li><a href="/wiki/HTTP_cookie" title="HTTP cookie">HTTP cookie</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/HyperText_Transfer_Protocol" class="mw-redirect" title="HyperText Transfer Protocol">HyperText Transfer Protocol</a> (HTTP)</li> <li><a href="/wiki/Semantic_URL" class="mw-redirect" title="Semantic URL">Semantic URLs</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/URI_fragment" title="URI fragment">URI fragment</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/URI_normalization" title="URI normalization">URI normalization</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/URI_scheme" class="mw-redirect" title="URI scheme">URI scheme</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/UTM_parameters" title="UTM parameters">UTM parameters</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Web_beacon" title="Web beacon">Web beacon</a></li></ul> </div> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Query_string&action=edit&section=9" title="Edit section: References"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1239543626">.mw-parser-output .reflist{margin-bottom:0.5em;list-style-type:decimal}@media screen{.mw-parser-output .reflist{font-size:90%}}.mw-parser-output .reflist .references{font-size:100%;margin-bottom:0;list-style-type:inherit}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns-2{column-width:30em}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns-3{column-width:25em}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns{margin-top:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns ol{margin-top:0}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns li{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}.mw-parser-output .reflist-upper-alpha{list-style-type:upper-alpha}.mw-parser-output .reflist-upper-roman{list-style-type:upper-roman}.mw-parser-output .reflist-lower-alpha{list-style-type:lower-alpha}.mw-parser-output .reflist-lower-greek{list-style-type:lower-greek}.mw-parser-output .reflist-lower-roman{list-style-type:lower-roman}</style><div class="reflist"> <div class="mw-references-wrap mw-references-columns"><ol class="references"> <li id="cite_note-1"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-1">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1238218222">.mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit;word-wrap:break-word}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"\"""\"""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .citation:target{background-color:rgba(0,127,255,0.133)}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-free.id-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Lock-green.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited.id-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration.id-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription.id-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg")right 0.1em center/12px no-repeat}body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-free a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background-size:contain;padding:0 1em 0 0}.mw-parser-output .cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:none;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;color:var(--color-error,#d33)}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{color:var(--color-error,#d33)}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#085;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right{padding-right:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .citation .mw-selflink{font-weight:inherit}@media screen{.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{color:#18911f}}@media screen and (prefers-color-scheme:dark){html.skin-theme-clientpref-os .mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{color:#18911f}}</style><cite 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Retrieved <span class="nowrap">2013-09-08</span></span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=unknown&rft.jtitle=Stack+Overflow&rft.atitle=uri+%E2%80%93+Authoritative+position+of+duplicate+HTTP+GET+query+keys&rft.date=2013-06-09&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fstackoverflow.com%2Fquestions%2F1746507%2Fauthoritative-position-of-duplicate-http-get-query-keys&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AQuery+string" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-6"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-6">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/appendix/notes.html#h-B.2.2">Performance, Implementation, and Design Notes</a>. W3.org. Retrieved on 2013-09-08.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-w3c-recom-2014-7"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-w3c-recom-2014_7-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222" /><cite class="citation web cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/REC-html5-20141028/forms.html#url-encoded-form-data">"4.10 Forms — HTML5"</a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=unknown&rft.btitle=4.10+Forms+%E2%80%94+HTML5&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2FTR%2F2014%2FREC-html5-20141028%2Fforms.html%23url-encoded-form-data&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AQuery+string" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-html5-8"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-html5_8-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="https://www.w3.org/TR/html52/sec-forms.html#form-submission-algorithm">[1]</a>, HTML5.2, W3C recommendation, 14 December 2017</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-9"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-9">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222" /><cite class="citation web cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20171019030835/https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/isindex">"<isindex>"</a>. <i>HTML (HyperText Markup Language)</i>. 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Retrieved <span class="nowrap">2015-11-21</span></span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=unknown&rft.jtitle=HTML+%28HyperText+Markup+Language%29&rft.atitle=%26lt%3Bisindex%26gt%3B&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fdeveloper.mozilla.org%2Fen-US%2Fdocs%2FWeb%2FHTML%2FElement%2Fisindex&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AQuery+string" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-10"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-10">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222" /><cite class="citation web cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210622024419/https://www.w3.org/wiki/HTML/Elements/isindex">"HTML/Elements/isindex"</a>. <i>W3C Wiki</i>. Archived from <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.w3.org/wiki/HTML/Elements/isindex">the original</a> on 2021-06-22<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">2020-03-20</span></span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=unknown&rft.jtitle=W3C+Wiki&rft.atitle=HTML%2FElements%2Fisindex&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2Fwiki%2FHTML%2FElements%2Fisindex&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AQuery+string" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-w3schools-11"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-w3schools_11-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222" /><cite class="citation web cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_urlencode.asp">"HTML URL Encoding Reference"</a>. W3Schools<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">May 1,</span> 2013</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=unknown&rft.btitle=HTML+URL+Encoding+Reference&rft.pub=W3Schools&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3schools.com%2Ftags%2Fref_urlencode.asp&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AQuery+string" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-html5_urlencoded-12"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-html5_urlencoded_12-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">The <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.w3.org/TR/html52/sec-forms.html#application-x-www-form-urlencoded-encoding-algorithm"><i>application/x-www-form-urlencoded</i> encoding algorithm</a>, HTML5.2, W3C recommendation, 14 December 2017</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-13"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-13">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7230#section-3.1.1">HTTP/1.1 Message Syntax and Routing</a>. ietf.org. 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