Sort parameter use of literal plus symbol ("+")

[realityendshere]

If I am not mistaken, many web servers see the plus symbol ("+") as a substitute for a white space or ("%20") when sent as a query param in the URL.

In the JSON API spec, the format for sending sorting criteria to a collection endpoint is:

GET /people?sort=+age,+name

However, my Rails API code sees params[:sort]= age, name (with blank spaces before age and name). In hunting around on Google, it seems this is not limited to Rails; it is expected behavior for query params --- +'s are intended to be shorthand for spaces.

Which raises the question: when the spec says to use GET /people?sort=+age,+name, should the +'s be literal and the server should compensate for the +'s or resulting white spaces? Or are the +'s expected to be URL encoded like GET /people?sort=%2bage,%2bname?

[tkellen]

/ref https://github.com/endpoints/endpoints/blob/42f3e2583e260bc34a0b86ebe1034db9df6b8f11/modules/adapter-bookshelf/lib/process_sort.js#L3-L7

[tkellen]

resolved in 8c63a72