How to specify "?" for url-patterns as querystring and not "optional match"

[iambumblehead]

Please give advice or recommendation for handling the "?" character, where it is found in a querystring such as "/the/path?the=query#the-hash".

The context is this PR, where sources using older [email protected] were updated to use [email protected]. When using latest [email protected], the tests failed if path-to-regexp was called on a url with querystring,

TypeError: Unexpected ? at index 9, expected end:
  /the/path?the=query#the-hash;
  visit https://git.new/pathToRegexpError for info

The guide at https://git.new/pathToRegexpError gives this advice, "For optional (?), use braces: /file{.:ext}." so the "solution" at the PR was this,

pattern = pattern.replace(/\?/, '{.:optqspunct}');
// /the/path?the=query#the-hash
// -> /the/path{.:optqspunct}the=query#the-hash

The solution at the PR seems wrong, however, as the url is not using "?" to specify an "optional match" but it is just there as part of the url querystring.

Thank you for this library and thank you in advance for any advice.

[blakeembrey]

It sounds like you aren't after the optional behavior (which is /:foo?) but rather a literal ?. IIRC this became an error when the syntax become stricter in v6, and you need to escape with a backslash (e.g. \\?).

The reason it was required to be stricter was to avoid small changes becoming unexpected changes (e.g. /foo? and /:foo? mean much different things).

[iambumblehead]

okay thanks for the reply! :)