[Django]-Best way to get query string from a URL in python?

Third option:

>>> from urlparse import urlparse, parse_qs
>>> url = 'http://something.com?blah=1&x=2'
>>> urlparse(url).query
'blah=1&x=2'
>>> parse_qs(urlparse(url).query)
{'blah': ['1'], 'x': ['2']}

In Python 3+ this is available as:

from urllib.parse import parse_qs

Documentation for urllib.parse

I prefer using

request.META['QUERY_STRING']

From docs:

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/stable/ref/request-response/#django.http.HttpRequest.META

This does not include the ? prefix.