docs: def merge_query(path, postmap, force_unicode=True):
      """
      Merges params parsed from the URI into the mapping from the POST body and
      returns a new dict with the values.
  
      This is a convenience function that gives use a dict a bit like PHP's $_REQUEST
      array.  The original 'postmap' is preserved so the caller can identify a
      param's source if necessary.
  """
      if postmap:
          p = postmap.copy()
      else:
          p = {}
      p.update(get_query(path, force_unicode=False))
  
      if force_unicode:
          p = _unicode(p)
      return p