javascript: parsing variables in the URL

Question

so, my URL is example.com/?ref=person

but ref is null after the regex. What am I doing wrong here?

function getReferer(){
 var regex = new RegExp(/ref=(.+)/);
 var ref = regex.exec(window.location.ref);
 alert(ref);
 if (ref == null) return "";
 else return ref[1];
}

Answer 1

Replace window.location.ref by window.location.href. Don't use new RegExp if not necessary, it's slower.

function getReferer(){
 var regex = /ref=(.+)/;
 var ref = regex.exec(window.location.href);
 alert(ref);
 if (ref == null) return "";
 else return ref[1];
}