e4e1b62 broke `to_param` handling:

- There was an issue inside controller tests where order params were not respected, the reason
  was because we were calling `Hash#to_query` which sorts the results lexicographically.
  1e4e1b62 fixed that issue by not using `to_query` but instead a utility function provided by rack.
- However with the fix came another issue where it's now no longer possible to do this

  ```
   post :foo, params: { user: User.first }

   # Prior to the patch the controller will receive { "user" => "1" }
   # Whereas now you get { "user": "#<User: ...>" }
  ```

  The fix in this PR is to modify `Hash#to_query` to sort only when it
  doesn't contain an array structure that looks something like "bar[]"

  Ref https://github.com/rails/rails/pull/33341#issuecomment-404039396

2 files changed, 19 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/object/to_query.rb b/activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/object/to_query.rb
index abb461966a..bac6ff9c97 100644
--- a/activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/object/to_query.rb
+++ b/activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/object/to_query.rb
@@ -75,11 +75,14 @@ class Hash
   #
   # This method is also aliased as +to_param+.
   def to_query(namespace = nil)
-    collect do |key, value|
+    query = collect do |key, value|
       unless (value.is_a?(Hash) || value.is_a?(Array)) && value.empty?
         value.to_query(namespace ? "#{namespace}[#{key}]" : key)
       end
-    end.compact.sort! * "&"
+    end.compact
+
+    query.sort! unless namespace.to_s.include?("[]")
+    query.join("&")
   end
 
   alias_method :to_param, :to_query
diff --git a/activesupport/test/core_ext/object/to_query_test.rb b/activesupport/test/core_ext/object/to_query_test.rb
index 7593bcfa4d..b0b7ef0913 100644
--- a/activesupport/test/core_ext/object/to_query_test.rb
+++ b/activesupport/test/core_ext/object/to_query_test.rb
@@ -77,6 +77,20 @@ class ToQueryTest < ActiveSupport::TestCase
     assert_equal "name=Nakshay&type=human", hash.to_query
   end
 
+  def test_hash_not_sorted_lexicographically_for_nested_structure
+    params = {
+      "foo" => {
+        "contents" => [
+          { "name" => "gorby", "id" => "123" },
+          { "name" => "puff", "d" => "true" }
+        ]
+      }
+    }
+    expected = "foo[contents][][name]=gorby&foo[contents][][id]=123&foo[contents][][name]=puff&foo[contents][][d]=true"
+
+    assert_equal expected, URI.decode(params.to_query)
+  end
+
   private
     def assert_query_equal(expected, actual)
       assert_equal expected.split("&"), actual.to_query.split("&")