jquery - Convert JavaScript object into URI-encoded string

Question

I got a JavaScript object which I would like to get x-www-form-urlencoded.

Something like $('#myform').serialize() but for objects.

The following object:

{
    firstName: "Jonas",
    lastName: "Gauffin"
}

would get encoded to:

firstName=Jonas&lastName=Gauffin (do note that special characters should get encoded properly)

Answer 1

Please look closely at both answers I provide here to determine which fits you best.

---

Answer 1:

Likely what you need: Readies a JSON to be used in a URL as a single argument, for later decoding.

jsfiddle

encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify({"test1":"val1","test2":"val2"}))+"<div>");

Result:

%7B%22test%22%3A%22val1%22%2C%22test2%22%3A%22val2%22%7D

For those who just want a function to do it:

function jsonToURI(json){ return encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify(json)); }

function uriToJSON(urijson){ return JSON.parse(decodeURIComponent(urijson)); }

---

Answer 2:

Uses a JSON as a source of key value pairs for x-www-form-urlencoded output.

jsfiddle

// This should probably only be used if all JSON elements are strings
function xwwwfurlenc(srcjson){
    if(typeof srcjson !== "object")
      if(typeof console !== "undefined"){
        console.log(""srcjson" is not a JSON object");
        return null;
      }
    u = encodeURIComponent;
    var urljson = "";
    var keys = Object.keys(srcjson);
    for(var i=0; i <keys.length; i++){
        urljson += u(keys[i]) + "=" + u(srcjson[keys[i]]);
        if(i < (keys.length-1))urljson+="&";
    }
    return urljson;
}

// Will only decode as strings
// Without embedding extra information, there is no clean way to
// know what type of variable it was.
function dexwwwfurlenc(urljson){
    var dstjson = {};
    var ret;
    var reg = /(?:^|&)(w+)=(w+)/g;
    while((ret = reg.exec(urljson)) !== null){
        dstjson[ret[1]] = ret[2];
    }
    return dstjson;
}