Adding a parameter to the URL with JavaScript

In a web application that makes use of AJAX calls, I need to submit a request but add a parameter to the end of the URL, for example:

Original URL:

http://server/myapp.php?id=10

Resulting URL:

http://server/myapp.php?id=10&enabled=true

Looking for a JavaScript function which parses the URL looking at each parameter, then adds the new parameter or updates the value if one already exists.


You can use one of these:

  • https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/URL
  • https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/API/URLSearchParams

Example:

var url = new URL("http://foo.bar/?x=1&y=2");

// If your expected result is "http://foo.bar/?x=1&y=2&x=42"
url.searchParams.append('x', 42);

// If your expected result is "http://foo.bar/?x=42&y=2"
url.searchParams.set('x', 42);

A basic implementation which you'll need to adapt would look something like this:

function insertParam(key, value) {
    key = encodeURIComponent(key);
    value = encodeURIComponent(value);

    // kvp looks like ['key1=value1', 'key2=value2', ...]
    var kvp = document.location.search.substr(1).split('&');
    let i=0;

    for(; i<kvp.length; i++){
        if (kvp[i].startsWith(key + '=')) {
            let pair = kvp[i].split('=');
            pair[1] = value;
            kvp[i] = pair.join('=');
            break;
        }
    }

    if(i >= kvp.length){
        kvp[kvp.length] = [key,value].join('=');
    }

    // can return this or...
    let params = kvp.join('&');

    // reload page with new params
    document.location.search = params;
}

This is approximately twice as fast as a regex or search based solution, but that depends completely on the length of the querystring and the index of any match


the slow regex method I benchmarked against for completions sake (approx +150% slower)

function insertParam2(key,value)
{
    key = encodeURIComponent(key); value = encodeURIComponent(value);

    var s = document.location.search;
    var kvp = key+"="+value;

    var r = new RegExp("(&|\\?)"+key+"=[^\&]*");

    s = s.replace(r,"$1"+kvp);

    if(!RegExp.$1) {s += (s.length>0 ? '&' : '?') + kvp;};

    //again, do what you will here
    document.location.search = s;
}