Question

Using C#, .net 4.0

I’m using HttpUtility.ParseQueryString to parse a mailto URI, as such:

MailMessage message = new MailMessage();
NameValueCollection mailTo = System.Web.HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(mailToUri.OriginalString.Split('?')[1]);
message.Subject = mailTo["subject"];

The URI can have multiple “to” parameters, such as:

mailto://?to=[e-mail]&to=[e-mail]&to=[e-mail]&subject=test&body=this%20should%20be%20the%20body"

When stepping through the code I can see ParseQueryString creates the mailTo[“to”] NameValueCollection that contains a single “to” key with multiple values, which appears to be an object of type System.Collections.Specialized.NameObjectCollectionBase.NameObjectEntry

I’m sure I’m missing something simple. I haven’t been able to figure out how to iterate over this collection and get each individual value. I’d be looking for something like this, which obviously doesn’t work:

        foreach (String address in mailTo["to"])
        {
            message.To.Add(new MailAddress(address));
        }

Additionally, if you know a better way to go from mailto URI to SMTP message I’m all eyes.

Answer 1

the value part of the NameValueCollection is a string. So for the “to” key it would be a comma delimited string of email addresses.

string s = "to=[e-mail]&to=[e-mail]&to=[e-mail]&subject=test";
var items = System.Web.HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(s);

foreach(string email in items["to"].Split(','))
{
    Console.Out.WriteLine(email);
}

results in the following

[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]