How to force URIBuilder.path(...) to encode parameters like "%AD"? This method doesn't always encode parameters with percentage, correctly

Question

How to force URIBuilder.path(...) to encode parameters like "%AD"?

The methods path, replacePath and segment of URIBuilder do not always encode parameters with percentage, correctly.

When a parameter contains the character "%" followed by two characters that together form an URL-encoded character, the "%" is not encoded as "%25".

For example

URI uri = UriBuilder.fromUri("https://dummy.com").queryParam("param", "%AD");
String test = uri.build().toString();

"test" is "https://dummy.com?param=%AD"
But it should be "https://dummy.com?param=%25AD" (with the character "%" encoded as "%25")

The method UriBuilderImpl.queryParam(...) behaves like this when the two characters following the "%" are hexadecimal. I.e, the method "com.sun.jersey.api.uri.UriComponent.isHexCharacter(char)" returns true for the characters following the "%".

I think the behavior of UriBuilderImpl is correct because I guess it tries to not encode parameters that already are encoded. But in my scenario, I will never try to create URLs with parameters that already encoded.

What should I do?

My Web application uses Jersey and in many places I build URIs using the class UriBuilder or invoke the method getBaseUriBuilder of UriInfo objects.

I can replace "%" with "%25", every time I invoke the methods queryParam, replaceQueryParam or segment. But I am looking for a less cumbersome solution.

How can I make Jersey to return my own implementation of UriBuilder?

I thought of creating a class that extends UriBuilderImpl that overrides these methods and that perform this replacing before invoking super.queryParam(...) or whatever.

Is there any way of making Jersey to return my own UriBuilder instead of UriBuilderImpl, when invoking UriBuilder.fromURL(...), UriInfo.getBaseUriBuilder(...), etc?

Looking at the method RuntimeDelegate, I thought of extending RuntimeDelegateImpl. My implementation would override the method createUriBuilder(...), which would return my own UriBuilder, instead of UriBuilderImpl. Then, I would add the file META-INF/services/javax.ws.rs.ext.RuntimeDelegate and in it, a the full class name of my RuntimeDelegateImpl.

The problem is that the jersey-bundle.jar already contains a META-INF/services/javax.ws.rs.ext.RuntimeDelegate that points to com.sun.jersey.server.impl.provider.RuntimeDelegateImpl, so the container loads that file instead of my javax.ws.rs.ext.RuntimeDelegate. Therefore, it does not load my RuntimeDelegateimplementation.

Is it possible to provide my own implementation of RuntimeDelegate?

Should I take a different approach?

Answer 1

UriBuilder

This is possible with help of UriComponent from Jersey or URLEncoder directly from Java:

UriBuilder.fromUri("https://dummy.com")
        .queryParam("param",
                UriComponent.encode("%AD",
                    UriComponent.Type.QUERY_PARAM_SPACE_ENCODED))
        .build();

Which result in:

https://dummy.com/?param=%25AD

Or:

UriBuilder.fromUri("https://dummy.com")
        .queryParam("param", URLEncoder.encode("%AD", "UTF-8"))
        .build()

Will result in:

https://dummy.com/?param=%25AD

For a more complex examples (i.e. encoding JSON in query param) this approach is also possible. Let's assume you have a JSON like {"Entity":{"foo":"foo","bar":"bar"}}. When encoded using UriComponent the result for query param would look like:

https://dummy.com/?param=%7B%22Entity%22:%7B%22foo%22:%22foo%22,%22bar%22:%22bar%22%7D%7D

JSON like this could be even injected via @QueryParam into resource field / method param (see JSON in Query Params or How to Inject Custom Java Types via JAX-RS Parameter Annotations).

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Which Jersey version do you use? In the tags you mention Jersey 2 but in the RuntimeDelegate section you're using Jersey 1 stuff.