In the World Wide Web, a query string is the part of a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that contains data to be passed to web applications such as CGI programs.
When a web page is requested via the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the server locates a file in its file system based on the requested URL. This file may be a regular file or a program. In the second case, the server may (depending on its configuration) run the program, sending its output as the requested page. The query string is a part of the URL which is passed to the program. Its use permits data to be passed from the HTTP client (often a web browser) to the program which generates the web page.
Read more about Query String: Structure, URL Encoding, RFC, Example, Tracking, Flexibility Vs. Security, Compatibility Issues
Famous quotes containing the words query and/or string:
“Such condition of suspended judgment indeed, in its more genial development and under felicitous culture, is but the expectation, the receptivity, of the faithful scholar, determined not to foreclose what is still a question—the “philosophic temper,” in short, for which a survival of query will be still the salt of truth, even in the most absolutely ascertained knowledge.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“The Indian remarked as before, “Must have hard wood to cook moose-meat,” as if that were a maxim, and proceeded to get it. My companion cooked some in California fashion, winding a long string of the meat round a stick and slowly turning it in his hand before the fire. It was very good. But the Indian, not approving of the mode, or because he was not allowed to cook it his own way, would not taste it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)