# HTTP request node - query string

**URL:** <https://discourse.nodered.org/t/http-request-node-query-string/9235>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [20 March 2019 15:44 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/http-request-node-query-string/9235 "2019-03-20T15:44:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Andrei](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/andrei/32/10446_2.png) [@Andrei](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Andrei)\
**Post date:** [20 March 2019 15:44 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/http-request-node-query-string/9235/1 "2019-03-20T15:44:06Z")

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The http request node was greatly improved in Node-REd version 0.20 with the addition of Bearer and Digest authentication modes. Additionally, a new option was added to allow building a query string from msg.payload. This is explained in the release notes as quoted below:

> - The HTTP Request node can optionally automatically encode msg.payload as query string parameters for a GET request.

What is missing perhaps is a quick note in the help text explaining that msg.payload in such case is expected to be an object, like for instance:

```auto
{
    "format": "rss",
    "query": "cars"
}

```

This example object will generate the query string: `format=rss&query=cars`

Below how I had to configure a change node to work with this feature from HTPP request node:

 ![r-01](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/nodered/original/2X/5/5456927de2292a973d4c342415b969ac8cf08494.png) ![r-02](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/nodered/original/2X/c/c006f207fcf31d6da63301a4270ce28221c33548.png)

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**Author:** ![dceejay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/dceejay/32/38_2.png) [@dceejay](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/dceejay)\
**Post date:** [20 March 2019 16:29 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/http-request-node-query-string/9235/2 "2019-03-20T16:29:23Z")

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Pull Requests to Docs are always welcome.

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**Author:** ![Andrei](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/andrei/32/10446_2.png) [@Andrei](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Andrei)\
**Post date:** [20 March 2019 17:12 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/http-request-node-query-string/9235/3 "2019-03-20T17:12:20Z")

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Thanks Dave, I will submit one.

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**Author:** ![Andrei](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/andrei/32/10446_2.png) [@Andrei](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Andrei)\
**Post date:** [27 March 2019 16:17 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/http-request-node-query-string/9235/4 "2019-03-27T16:17:25Z")

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Hi Dave, I never did a PR for changing the help text for a core node. Only now I realized (aha moment) that there is no help text in the `.html` file of the core node (it is not like we do in a contrib-node).

So, after a while I guess I found the right place to make the modification

`node-red/packages/node_modules/@node-red/nodes/locales/en-US/io/21-httprequest.html`

but another question popped into my head:

If someone changes the help text for English... who will change the help text for the other languages supported by Node-RED ?

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**Author:** ![knolleary](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/knolleary/32/3_2.png) [@knolleary](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/knolleary)\
**Post date:** [27 March 2019 16:25 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/http-request-node-query-string/9235/5 "2019-03-27T16:25:24Z")

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