getting url parameters with javascript

How to Get URL Parameters with JavaScript

Have you ever needed to extract information from a URL in your JavaScript code? Maybe you needed to grab a user ID or a product ID from the URL to display specific content on a page. Whatever the case may be, there are a few ways you can accomplish this task.

Method 1: Using the URLSearchParams API

The URLSearchParams API is a built-in object in modern browsers that allows you to access and manipulate the search parameters of a URL. Here's an example:

const urlParams = new URLSearchParams(window.location.search);
const productId = urlParams.get('productId');

In this code snippet, we're creating a new URLSearchParams object using the window.location.search property, which contains the query string of the current URL. We then use the get() method to retrieve the value of the productId parameter.

Method 2: Using Regular Expressions

If you're not using a modern browser that supports the URLSearchParams API, or if you prefer not to use it for some reason, you can also extract URL parameters using regular expressions. Here's an example:

const regex = /[?&]([^=#]+)=([^&#]*)/g;
const url = window.location.href;
let match;
while ((match = regex.exec(url))) {
  console.log(match[1], match[2]);
}

In this code snippet, we're using a regular expression to find all instances of query parameters in the URL. We're then looping through each match and logging the parameter name and value to the console.

Method 3: Using a Third-Party Library

If you don't want to write your own code to extract URL parameters, you can also use a third-party library like query-string. Here's an example:

import queryString from 'query-string';
const parsed = queryString.parse(window.location.search);
const productId = parsed.productId;

In this code snippet, we're importing the query-string library and using its parse() method to extract the query parameters from the URL. We then retrieve the value of the productId parameter.

Conclusion

There are multiple ways to extract URL parameters in JavaScript, depending on your preferences and the browser you're targeting. Whether you prefer to use a built-in API, regular expressions, or a third-party library, you should now be able to extract query parameters from a URL with ease.

Subscribe to The Poor Coder | Algorithm Solutions

Don’t miss out on the latest issues. Sign up now to get access to the library of members-only issues.
[email protected]
Subscribe