Re: [whatwg/url] Inconsistency when using URLSearchParams to mutate a URL (#478)

My take on the history (from #18) is that `URLSearchParams` is misnamed and misused.

It was designed as a kind of `application/x-www-form-urlencoded` representation manipulator, to represent form data in that form. But instead of being named `ApplicationXWWWFormURLEncodedParams`, it was misnamed `URLSearchParams`.

And then things got worse when one got attached to every `URL` object via the `searchParams` property, in a way where interacting with the new `url.searchParams` property would cause results inconsistent with interacting with the URL's `search` property, because `search` uses URL query rules instead of `application/x-www-form-urlencoded` rules.

So although we have cross-browser uniformity, we unfortunately have a massive web developer footgun.

There are a few ways out of this:

1. Do nothing. If you want to actually manipulate a URL's query string according to URL query rules, you need to do so manually or with a dedicated library, and `url.searchParams` is not a good fit for you.
2. (This issue's proposal, IIUC) Make `URLSearchParams` have an internal "mode", e.g. "`application/x-www-form-urlencoded` mode" vs. "URL search params mode". `url.searchParams` can be an instance of `URLSearchParams` which uses the "URL search params mode", whereas `new URLSearchParams()` can use the "`application/x-www-form-urlencoded` mode".
3. Change `URLSearchParams` to always operate according to the URL query rules. Optionally, introduce a new object (e.g. `ApplicationXWWWFormURLEncodedParams`) which can be used for representing form data.

I have always favored (3), but been unsure if we could get away with it; there are compat risks. The proposal of (2) is novel, but I'm not sure if it's a great idea; it seems like it'd add confusion and I don't know how much compat risk it would really mitigate.

-- 
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/whatwg/url/issues/478#issuecomment-620929779