Get current URL with jQuery?

1948
votes

I am using jQuery. How do I get the path of the current URL and assign it to a variable?

Example URL:

http://localhost/menuname.de?foo=bar&number=0
30
javascriptjqueryurl
you can see also tech-blog.maddyzone.com/javascript/… – Rituraj ratan
I think the question should be restored to asking for jQuery, since there is an answer for that, regardless of whether jQuery is required to accomplish the task. – goodeye
possible duplicate of Get current URL with JavaScript? – vimal1083
@goodeye No, there is no jQuery way to get the location; as of the jQuery bug tracker: »It may have worked but it was never supported or documented. Simply use document.location.href which is faster, simpler, and easier to understand.« In other words, some folks used jQuery to get the location, but they relied on a bug, rather than feature. See: bugs.jquery.com/ticket/7858 – feeela

30 Answers

2673
votes

To get the path, you can use:

var pathname = window.location.pathname; // Returns path only (/path/example.html)
var url      = window.location.href;     // Returns full URL (https://example.com/path/example.html)
var origin   = window.location.origin;   // Returns base URL (https://example.com)
829
votes

In pure jQuery style:

$(location).attr('href');

The location object also has other properties, like host, hash, protocol, and pathname.

490
votes
http://www.refulz.com:8082/index.php#tab2?foo=789

Property    Result
------------------------------------------
host        www.refulz.com:8082
hostname    www.refulz.com
port        8082
protocol    http:
pathname    index.php
href        http://www.refulz.com:8082/index.php#tab2
hash        #tab2
search      ?foo=789

var x = $(location).attr('<property>');

This will work only if you have jQuery. For example:

<html>
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.2.6/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
  $(location).attr('href');      // http://www.refulz.com:8082/index.php#tab2
  $(location).attr('pathname');  // index.php
</script>
</html>
75
votes

If you need the hash parameters present in the URL, window.location.href may be a better choice.

window.location.pathname
=> /search

window.location.href 
 => www.website.com/search#race_type=1
54
votes

You'll want to use JavaScript's built-in window.location object.

46
votes

Just add this function in JavaScript, and it will return the absolute path of the current path.

function getAbsolutePath() {
    var loc = window.location;
    var pathName = loc.pathname.substring(0, loc.pathname.lastIndexOf('/') + 1);
    return loc.href.substring(0, loc.href.length - ((loc.pathname + loc.search + loc.hash).length - pathName.length));
}

I hope it works for you.

41
votes

window.location is an object in javascript. it returns following data

window.location.host          #returns host
window.location.hostname      #returns hostname
window.location.path          #return path
window.location.href          #returns full current url
window.location.port          #returns the port
window.location.protocol      #returns the protocol

in jquery you can use 

$(location).attr('host');        #returns host
$(location).attr('hostname');    #returns hostname
$(location).attr('path');        #returns path
$(location).attr('href');        #returns href
$(location).attr('port');        #returns port
$(location).attr('protocol');    #returns protocol
31
votes

This is a more complicated issue than many may think. Several browsers support built-in JavaScript location objects and associated parameters/methods accessible through window.location or document.location. However, different flavors of Internet Explorer (6,7) don't support these methods in the same way, (window.location.href? window.location.replace() not supported) so you have to access them differently by writing conditional code all the time to hand-hold Internet Explorer.

So, if you have jQuery available and loaded, you might as well use jQuery (location), as the others mentioned because it resolves these issues. If however, you are doing-for an example-some client-side geolocation redirection via JavaScript (that is, using Google Maps API and location object methods), then you may not want to load the entire jQuery library and write your conditional code that checks every version of Internet Explorer/Firefox/etc.

Internet Explorer makes the front-end coding cat unhappy, but jQuery is a plate of milk.

29
votes

For the host name only, use:

window.location.hostname
25
votes

java-script provides many methods to retrieve current URL which is displayed in browser's address bar.

Test URL : 

http://
stackoverflow.com/questions/5515310/get-current-url-with-jquery/32942762
?
rq=1&page=2&tab=active&answertab=votes
#
32942762

resourceAddress.hash();
console.log('URL Object ', webAddress);
console.log('Parameters ', param_values);

Function:

var webAddress = {};
var param_values = {};
var protocol = '';
var resourceAddress = {

    fullAddress : function () {
        var addressBar = window.location.href;
        if ( addressBar != '' && addressBar != 'undefined') {
            webAddress[ 'href' ] = addressBar;
        }
    },
    protocol_identifier : function () { resourceAddress.fullAddress();

        protocol = window.location.protocol.replace(':', '');
        if ( protocol != '' && protocol != 'undefined') {
            webAddress[ 'protocol' ] = protocol;
        }
    },
    domain : function () {      resourceAddress.protocol_identifier();

        var domain = window.location.hostname;
        if ( domain != '' && domain != 'undefined' && typeOfVar(domain) === 'string') {
            webAddress[ 'domain' ] = domain;
            var port = window.location.port;
            if ( (port == '' || port == 'undefined') && typeOfVar(port) === 'string') {
                if(protocol == 'http') port = '80';
                if(protocol == 'https') port = '443';           
            }
            webAddress[ 'port' ] = port;
        }
    },
    pathname : function () {        resourceAddress.domain();

        var resourcePath = window.location.pathname;
        if ( resourcePath != '' && resourcePath != 'undefined') {
            webAddress[ 'resourcePath' ] = resourcePath;
        }
    },
    params : function () {      resourceAddress.pathname();

        var v_args = location.search.substring(1).split("&");

        if ( v_args != '' && v_args != 'undefined')
        for (var i = 0; i < v_args.length; i++) {
            var pair = v_args[i].split("=");

            if ( typeOfVar( pair ) === 'array' ) {
                param_values[ decodeURIComponent( pair[0] ) ] = decodeURIComponent( pair[1] );
            }
        }
        webAddress[ 'params' ] = param_values;
    },
    hash : function () {        resourceAddress.params();

        var fragment = window.location.hash.substring(1);
        if ( fragment != '' && fragment != 'undefined')
            webAddress[ 'hash' ] = fragment;        
    }
};
function typeOfVar (obj) {
      return {}.toString.call(obj).split(' ')[1].slice(0, -1).toLowerCase();
}
  • protocol « Web-browsers use Internet Protocol by following some rules for communication between WebHosted Applications and Web Client(Browser). (http = 80, https (SSL) = 443, ftp = 21, etc.)

EX: With default port numbers

<protocol>//<hostname>:<port>/<pathname><search><hash>
https://en.wikipedia.org:443/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy
http://stackoverflow.com:80/
  • (//) « Host is the name given to an end-point(machine on which resource lives) on the Internet. www.stackoverflow.com - DNS IP Address of an Application (OR) localhost:8080 - localhost

Domain names are which you register by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System(DNS) tree. DNS servers of someone who manages your domain with IP-Address for addressing purposes. In DNS server hierarchy the Root name of an stackoverlfow.com is com.

gTLDs      - com « stackoverflow (OR) in « co « google

Local system you have to maintain domain's which are not PUBLIC in Host Files. localhost.yash.com « localhsot - subdomain(web-server), yash.com - maindomain(Proxy-Server). myLocalApplication.com 172.89.23.777

  • (/) « The path gives info about the specific resource within the host that the Web client wants to access
  • (?) « An optional query is to pass a sequence of attribute–value pairs separated by a delimiter(&).
  • (#) « An optional fragment is often an id attribute of a specific element, and web browsers will scroll this element into view.

If parameter has an Epoch ?date=1467708674 then use.

var epochDate = 1467708674; var date = new Date( epochDate );

URL enter image description here

Authentication url with username:password, If usernaem/password contains @ symbol
like:

Username = `my_email@gmail`
Password = `Yash@777`

then You need to URL encode the @ as %40. Refer...

http://my_email%40gmail.com:Yash%[email protected]_site.com

encodeURI() (vs) encodeURIComponent() example

var testURL = "http:my_email@gmail:Yash777@//stackoverflow.com?tab=active&page=1#32942762";

var Uri = "/:@?&=,#", UriComponent = "$;+", Unescaped = "(-_.!~*')"; // Fixed
var encodeURI_Str = encodeURI(Uri) +' '+ encodeURI( UriComponent ) +' '+ encodeURI(Unescaped);
var encodeURIComponent_Str =  encodeURIComponent( Uri ) +' '+ encodeURIComponent( UriComponent ) +' '+ encodeURIComponent( Unescaped );
console.log(encodeURI_Str, '\n', encodeURIComponent_Str);
/*
 /:@?&=,# +$; (-_.!~*') 
 %2F%3A%40%3F%26%3D%2C%23 %2B%24%3B (-_.!~*')
*/
24
votes

This will also work:

var currentURL = window.location.href;
20
votes

You can log window.location and see all the options, for just the URL use:

window.location.origin

for the whole path use:

window.location.href

there's also location.__

.host
.hostname
.protocol
.pathname
16
votes

This will return the absolute URL of the current page using JavaScript/jQuery.

  • document.URL

  • $("*").context.baseURI

  • location.href

13
votes

I have this to strip out the GET variables.

var loc = window.location;
var currentURL = loc.protocol + '//' + loc.host + loc.pathname;
13
votes

If there is someone who wants to concatenate the URL and hash tag, combine two functions:

var pathname = window.location.pathname + document.location.hash;
13
votes

You can simply get your path using js itself, window.location or location will give you the object of current URL

console.log("Origin - ",location.origin);
console.log("Entire URL - ",location.href);
console.log("Path Beyond URL - ",location.pathname);
12
votes
 var currenturl = jQuery(location).attr('href');
11
votes

To get the URL of the parent window from within an iframe:

$(window.parent.location).attr('href');

NB: only works on same domain

11
votes

The following are examples of useful code snippets that can be used – some of the examples use standard JavaScript functions and are not specific to jQuery:

See 8 Useful jQuery Snippets For URL’s & Querystrings.

11
votes

Here is an example to get the current URL using jQuery and JavaScript:

$(document).ready(function() {

    //jQuery
    $(location).attr('href');

    //Pure JavaScript
    var pathname = window.location.pathname;

    // To show it in an alert window
    alert(window.location);
});


$.getJSON("idcheck.php?callback=?", { url:$(location).attr('href')}, function(json){
    //alert(json.message);
});
10
votes

Use window.location.href. This will give you the complete URL.

10
votes

All browsers support Javascript window object. It defines the window of the browser.

The global objects and functions become part of the window object automatically.

All global variables are window objects properties and all global functions are its methods.

The whole HTML document is a window property too.

So you can use window.location object to get all url related attributes.

Javascript

console.log(window.location.host);     //returns host
console.log(window.location.hostname);    //returns hostname
console.log(window.location.pathname);         //return path
console.log(window.location.href);       //returns full current url
console.log(window.location.port);         //returns the port
console.log(window.location.protocol)     //returns the protocol

JQuery

console.log("host = "+$(location).attr('host'));
console.log("hostname = "+$(location).attr('hostname'));
console.log("pathname = "+$(location).attr('pathname')); 
console.log("href = "+$(location).attr('href'));   
console.log("port = "+$(location).attr('port'));   
console.log("protocol = "+$(location).attr('protocol'));
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.0/jquery.min.js"></script>
9
votes

window.location will give you the current URL, and you can extract whatever you want from it...

9
votes

If you want to get the path of the root site, use this:

$(location).attr('href').replace($(location).attr('pathname'),'');
9
votes

See purl.js. This will really help and can also be used, depending on jQuery. Use it like this:

$.url().param("yourparam");
9
votes

var path = location.pathname returns the path of the current URL (jQuery is not needed). The use of window.location is optional.

8
votes

Very Commonly Used top 3 ones are

1. window.location.hostname 
2. window.location.href
3. window.location.pathname
7
votes
var newURL = window.location.protocol + "//" + window.location.host + "/" + window.location.pathname;
5
votes
// get current URL

$(location).attr('href');
var pathname = window.location.pathname;
alert(window.location);
4
votes

In jstl we can access current url path using pageContext.request.contextPath, If you want to do a ajax call,

  url = "${pageContext.request.contextPath}" + "/controller/path"

Ex: in the page http://stackoverflow.com/questions/406192 this will give http://stackoverflow.com/controller/path