How can I get query string values in JavaScript?

Here's my own take on this. This first function decodes a URL string into an object of name/value pairs:

url_args_decode = function (url) {
  var args_enc, el, i, nameval, ret;
  ret = {};
  // use the DOM to parse the URL via an 'a' element
  el = document.createElement("a");
  el.href = url;
  // strip off initial ? on search and split
  args_enc = el.search.substring(1).split('&');
  for (i = 0; i < args_enc.length; i++) {
    // convert + into space, split on =, and then decode 
    args_enc[i].replace(/\+/g, ' ');
    nameval = args_enc[i].split('=', 2);
    ret[decodeURIComponent(nameval[0])]=decodeURIComponent(nameval[1]);
  }
  return ret;
};

And as an added bonus, if you change some of the args, you can use this second function to put the array of args back into the URL string:

url_args_replace = function (url, args) {
  var args_enc, el, name;
  // use the DOM to parse the URL via an 'a' element
  el = document.createElement("a");
  el.href = url;
  args_enc = [];
  // encode args to go into url
  for (name in args) {
    if (args.hasOwnProperty(name)) {
      name = encodeURIComponent(name);
      args[name] = encodeURIComponent(args[name]);
      args_enc.push(name + '=' + args[name]);
    }
  }
  if (args_enc.length > 0) {
    el.search = '?' + args_enc.join('&');
  } else {
    el.search = '';
  }
  return el.href;
};

If you're doing more URL manipulation than simply parsing the querystring, you may find URI.js helpful. It is a library for manipulating URLs - and comes with all the bells and whistles. (Sorry for self-advertising here)

to convert your querystring into a map:

var data = URI('?foo=bar&bar=baz&foo=world').query(true);
data == {
  "foo": ["bar", "world"],
  "bar": "baz"
}

(URI.js also "fixes" bad querystrings like ?&foo&&bar=baz& to ?foo&bar=baz)

function getUrlVar(key){
    var result = new RegExp(key + "=([^&]*)", "i").exec(window.location.search); 
    return result && unescape(result[1]) || ""; 
}

https://gist.github.com/1771618

I like Ryan Phelan's solution. But I don't see any point of extending jQuery for that? There is no usage of jQuery functionality.

On other hand I like the built-in function in Google Chrome: window.location.getParameter.

So why not to use this? Okay, other browsers don't have. So let's create this function if it does not exist:

if (!window.location.getParameter ) {
  window.location.getParameter = function(key) {
    function parseParams() {
        var params = {},
            e,
            a = /\+/g,  // Regex for replacing addition symbol with a space
            r = /([^&=]+)=?([^&]*)/g,
            d = function (s) { return decodeURIComponent(s.replace(a, " ")); },
            q = window.location.search.substring(1);

        while (e = r.exec(q))
            params[d(e[1])] = d(e[2]);

        return params;
    }

    if (!this.queryStringParams)
        this.queryStringParams = parseParams(); 

    return this.queryStringParams[key];
  };
}

This function is more or less from Ryan Phelan, but it is wrapped differently: clear name and no dependencies of other javascript libraries. More about this function on my blog.

Try this:

String.prototype.getValueByKey = function(k){
    var p = new RegExp('\\b'+k+'\\b','gi');
    return this.search(p) != -1 ? decodeURIComponent(this.substr(this.search(p)+k.length+1).substr(0,this.substr(this.search(p)+k.length+1).search(/(&|;|$)/))) : "";
};

Then call it like so:

if(location.search != "") location.search.getValueByKey("id");

You can use this for cookies also:

if(navigator.cookieEnabled) document.cookie.getValueByKey("username");

This only works for strings that have "key=value[&|;|$]"... will not work on objects/arrays.

If you don't want to use String.prototype... move it to a function and pass the string as an argument

Here is my version of query string parsing code on github

It's "prefixed" with jquery.*, but the parsing function itself don't use jQuery. Its pretty fast but still open for few simple performance optimizations.

Also it supports list & hash-tables encoding in URL, like:

arr[]=10&arr[]=20&arr[]=100

or

hash[key1]=hello&hash[key2]=moto&a=How%20are%20you

This code will create a object which have two method
1. isKeyExist: Check if particular parameter exist;
2. getValue: get value of particular parameter.

 var QSParam = new function() {
        var qsParm = {};
        var query = window.location.search.substring(1);
        var params = query.split('&');
        for (var i = 0; i < params.length; i++) {
            var pos = params[i].indexOf('=');
            if (pos > 0) {
                var key = params[i].substring(0, pos);
                var val = params[i].substring(pos + 1);
                qsParm[key] = val;
            }
        }
        this.isKeyExist = function(query){
            if(qsParm[query]){
                return true;
            }
            else{
               return false;
            }
        };     
        this.getValue = function(query){
            if(qsParm[query])
            {
                return qsParm[query];
            }
            throw "URL does not contain query "+ query;
        }
  };

Doesn't have enough reputation for comment, sigh.

Here's my edit to this excellent answer - with added ability to parse query strings with keys without values.

var url = 'http://sb.com/reg/step1?param';
var qs = (function(a) {
    if (a == "") return {};
    var b = {};
    for (var i = 0; i < a.length; ++i) {
        var p=a[i].split('=', 2);
        if (p[1]) p[1] = decodeURIComponent(p[1].replace(/\+/g, " "));
        b[p[0]] = p[1];
    }
    return b;
})((url.split('?'))[1].split('&'));

IMPORTANT! Parameter for that func in last line is different, it's just example how one can pass arbitrary url to it. You can use last line from Bruno answer to parse current url.

So what exactly changed? With url http://sb.com/reg/step1?param= results will be same. But with url http://sb.com/reg/step1?param Bruno solution returns object without keys, while mine returns object with key param and undefined value.

Code golf:

var a = location.search&&location.search.substr(1).replace(/\+/gi," ").split("&");
for (var i in a) {
    var s = a[i].split("=");
    a[i]  = a[unescape(s[0])] = unescape(s[1]);
}

Display it!

for (i in a) {
    document.write(i + ":" + a[i] + "<br/>");   
};

On my Mac: test.htm?i=can&has=cheezburger displays

0:can
1:cheezburger
i:can
has:cheezburger

I took this answer and added support for optionally passing the URL in as a parameter; falls back to window.location.search. Obviously this is useful for getting the query string parameters from URLs that are not the current page:

(function($, undef) {
  $.QueryString = function(url) {
    var pairs, qs = null, index, map = {};
    if(url == undef){
      qs = window.location.search.substr(1);
    }else{
      index = url.indexOf('?');
      if(index == -1) return {};
      qs = url.substring(index+1);
    }
    pairs = qs.split('&');
    if (pairs == "") return {};
    for (var i = 0; i < pairs.length; ++i)
    {
      var p = pairs[i].split('=');
      if(p.length != 2) continue;
      map[p[0]] = decodeURIComponent(p[1].replace(/\+/g, " "));
    }
    return map;
  };
})(jQuery);

I would rather use split() instead of Regex for this operation:

function getUrlParams() {
    var result = {};
    var params = (window.location.search.split('?')[1] || '').split('&');
    for(var param in params) {
        if (params.hasOwnProperty(param)) {
            paramParts = params[param].split('=');
            result[paramParts[0]] = decodeURIComponent(paramParts[1] || "");
        }
    }
    return result;
}

This is a function I created a while back and I'm quite happy with. It is not case sensitive - which is handy. Also, if the requested QS doesn't exist, it just returns an empty string.

I use a compressed version of this. I'm posting uncompressed for the novice types to better explain what's going on.

I'm sure this could be optimized or done differently to work faster, but it's always worked great for what I need.

Enjoy.

    function getQSP(sName, sURL) {
        var theItmToRtn = "";
        var theSrchStrg = location.search;
        if (sURL) theSrchStrg = sURL;

        var sOrig = theSrchStrg;

        theSrchStrg = theSrchStrg.toUpperCase();
        sName = sName.toUpperCase();
        theSrchStrg = theSrchStrg.replace("?", "&")
        theSrchStrg = theSrchStrg + "&";
        var theSrchToken = "&" + sName + "=";
        if (theSrchStrg.indexOf(theSrchToken) != -1) {
            var theSrchTokenLth = theSrchToken.length;
            var theSrchTokenLocStart = theSrchStrg.indexOf(theSrchToken) + theSrchTokenLth;
            var theLocOfNextAndSign = theSrchStrg.indexOf("&", theSrchTokenLocStart);
            theItmToRtn = unescape(sOrig.substring(theSrchTokenLocStart, theLocOfNextAndSign));
        }
        return unescape(theItmToRtn);
    }

Here's my stab at making Andy E's excellent solution into a full fledged jQuery plugin:

;(function ($) {
    $.extend({      
        getQueryString: function (name) {           
            function parseParams() {
                var params = {},
                    e,
                    a = /\+/g,  // Regex for replacing addition symbol with a space
                    r = /([^&=]+)=?([^&]*)/g,
                    d = function (s) { return decodeURIComponent(s.replace(a, " ")); },
                    q = window.location.search.substring(1);

                while (e = r.exec(q))
                    params[d(e[1])] = d(e[2]);

                return params;
            }

            if (!this.queryStringParams)
                this.queryStringParams = parseParams(); 

            return this.queryStringParams[name];
        }
    });
})(jQuery);

The syntax is:

var someVar = $.getQueryString('myParam');

Best of both worlds!