Is it possible to prevent the default URL decoding?

[ghost]

The percent encodings (such as %2B) are decoded automatically when a request is received in the polka server.

Original request URL: http://localhost:5000/proxy_path?query=N4IgLgng%2B
Received request URL: http://localhost:5000/proxy_path?query=N4IgLgng+

I don't want the URL decoding to happen automatically as I want to proxy the original request as such to a different server. How can I achieve this?

Sample server code:

const polka = require("polka");
const app = polka();

app.use((req, res, next) => {
    console.log(req.url);
});

app.listen(5000, () => {
    console.log('server listening on 5000');
});

[ghost]

I was running some experiments and found a weird behavior when I used @polka/url to parse the incoming request.

The URL decoding is not happening, when an arrow function is used. More details below,

Snippet1:

const polka = require("polka");
const app = polka();
const parseUrl = require('@polka/url');

app.parse = parseUrl; // #5

app.use((req, res, next) => {
    console.log(req.url); // /proxy_path?query=Ngig+
    next();
});

app.listen(5000, () => {
    console.log('server listening on 5000');
});

Snippet2: (changes in line:5)

const polka = require("polka");
const app = polka();
const parseUrl = require('@polka/url');

app.parse = (req) => parseUrl(req);  // #5

app.use((req, res, next) => {
    console.log(req.url); // /proxy_path?query=Ngig%2B
    next();
});

app.listen(5000, () => {
    console.log('server listening on 5000');
});

The results should be consistent and this issue should be fixed.

Another note is that, if the parseurl module is used instead of @polka/url the URL decoding is not happening with both of the above snippets.
i.e. When I hit http://localhost:5000/proxy_path?query=N4IgLgng%2B the value of req.url is always /proxy_path?query=Ngig%2B

[lukeed]

This is by design, see https://github.com/lukeed/polka#parsereq & you can search for other parse/decode issues in the repo. By default, decoding is enabled because 99.9% of applications want/need this. You didn't mention what version you're using, but I imagine it's a @next version, in which case, this is done thru the 2nd parameter to polka/url which you omitted in your override. Has nothing to do with the arrow function itself.

Either way, this is working as intended and not an issue. And the parseurl module does not decode, ever.

[ghost]

Hey @lukeed, thanks for the response. It makes sense now. Yes, I was using the @next version, which I didn't realize, apologies.

In the next version, the @polka/url module has the decoding disabled by default, whereas the decoding is enabled by default in polka. Please update the readme section accordingly. You can use this PR if helps.

Thanks :)