Rewrites with empty query parameters

Support
3

at a quick glance it seems to me it probably turns them into { [key]: undefined }

It does look that way, which is why I thought the mere presence of a specified query string key would result in the rewrite rule being processed. But what I’m finding is that is not the case. If you have a rule to redirect the /path?foo, Netlify’s redirects engine doesn’t seem to pick it up. It’s like the query parameter isn’t there at all, and the engine continues processing other rules.

I haven’t actually pushed anything to production and seen how it plays out on Netlify’s servers. But using netlify dev this is what I see:

Using the _redirects file and doing something like this:

/path foo /foo.html 200
/path bar /bar.html 200

Results in:

  • /path?foo - rewrite rule misses and I see a 404
  • /path?foo= - rewrite rule misses and I see a 404

But, when I use the netlify redirects playground and put in those exact same rules from the _redirects file, they get translated to this syntax for the netlify.toml file:

[[redirects]]
  from = "/path"
  query = {foo = ""}
  to = "/foo.html"
  status = 200
  force = false
[[redirects]]
  from = "/path"
  query = {bar = ""}
  to = "/bar.html"
  status = 200
  force = false

These rules result in:

  • /path?foo - rewrite rule misses and I see the 404
  • /path?foo= - rewrite rule catches and I see foo.html
  • /path?bar - rewrite rule misses and I see the 404
  • /path?bar= - rewrite rule catches and I see bar.html

Note the presence of the = sign makes the rule trigger—probably something to do with the differences in syntax between _redirects and netlify.toml.

That said, the docs for redirects in the netlify.toml file say this:

query: Query string parameters REQUIRED to match the redirect.

Note the emphasis on REQUIRED.

So perhaps there is no support for the mere presence of a query string parameter key—each query parameter HAS to have a key and a value, otherwise the redirects engine ignores it and moves on?