Convert relative path to absolute using JavaScript

There's a function, which gives me urls like:

./some.css
./extra/some.css
../../lib/slider/slider.css

It's always a relative path.

Let's think we know current path of the page, like http://site.com/stats/2012/, not sure how do I convert these relative paths to real ones?

We should get something like:

./some.css => http://site.com/stats/2012/some.css
./extra/some.css => http://site.com/stats/2012/extra/some.css
../../lib/slider/slider.css => http://site.com/lib/slider/slider.css

No jQuery, only vanilla javascript.

The most simple, efficient and correct way to do so it to just use URL api.

new URL("http://www.stackoverflow.com?q=hello").href;
//=> http://www.stackoverflow.com/?q=hello"

new URL("mypath","http://www.stackoverflow.com").href;
//=> "http://www.stackoverflow.com/mypath"

new URL("../mypath","http://www.stackoverflow.com/search").href
//=> "http://www.stackoverflow.com/mypath"

new URL("../mypath", document.baseURI).href
//=> "https://stackoverflow.com/questions/mypath"

Performance wise, this solution is on par with using string manipulation and twice as fast as creating a tag.

Javascript will do it for you. There's no need to create a function.

var link = document.createElement("a");
link.href = "../../lib/slider/slider.css";
alert(link.protocol+"//"+link.host+link.pathname+link.search+link.hash);

// Output will be "http://www.yoursite.com/lib/slider/slider.css"

But if you need it as a function:

var absolutePath = function(href) {
    var link = document.createElement("a");
    link.href = href;
    return (link.protocol+"//"+link.host+link.pathname+link.search+link.hash);
}

Update: Simpler version if you need the full absolute path:

var absolutePath = function(href) {
    var link = document.createElement("a");
    link.href = href;
    return link.href;
}

This should do it:

function absolute(base, relative) {
    var stack = base.split("/"),
        parts = relative.split("/");
    stack.pop(); // remove current file name (or empty string)
                 // (omit if "base" is the current folder without trailing slash)
    for (var i=0; i<parts.length; i++) {
        if (parts[i] == ".")
            continue;
        if (parts[i] == "..")
            stack.pop();
        else
            stack.push(parts[i]);
    }
    return stack.join("/");
}

This from MDN is unbreakable!

/*\
|*|
|*|  :: translate relative paths to absolute paths ::
|*|
|*|  https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/document.cookie
|*|
|*|  The following code is released under the GNU Public License, version 3 or later.
|*|  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0-standalone.html
|*|
\*/

function relPathToAbs (sRelPath) {
  var nUpLn, sDir = "", sPath = location.pathname.replace(/[^\/]*$/, sRelPath.replace(/(\/|^)(?:\.?\/+)+/g, "$1"));
  for (var nEnd, nStart = 0; nEnd = sPath.indexOf("/../", nStart), nEnd > -1; nStart = nEnd + nUpLn) {
    nUpLn = /^\/(?:\.\.\/)*/.exec(sPath.slice(nEnd))[0].length;
    sDir = (sDir + sPath.substring(nStart, nEnd)).replace(new RegExp("(?:\\\/+[^\\\/]*){0," + ((nUpLn - 1) / 3) + "}$"), "/");
  }
  return sDir + sPath.substr(nStart);
}

Sample usage:

/* Let us be in /en-US/docs/Web/API/document.cookie */

alert(location.pathname);
// displays: /en-US/docs/Web/API/document.cookie

alert(relPathToAbs("./"));
// displays: /en-US/docs/Web/API/

alert(relPathToAbs("../Guide/API/DOM/Storage"));
// displays: /en-US/docs/Web/Guide/API/DOM/Storage

alert(relPathToAbs("../../Firefox"));
// displays: /en-US/docs/Firefox

alert(relPathToAbs("../Guide/././API/../../../Firefox"));
// displays: /en-US/docs/Firefox