How to parse URL safe query parameters into readable strings

Question

I found one library, jQuery URL Parser, which seems to be full-featured as far as parsing out the various segments of a URL. I'm trying to go one step further though, and parse the values of the query parameters.

For example, given the URL "http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=rm+-rf+%2F" I'd like to get "rm -rf /" for the q parameter. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

As a side note, I'm not operating on the URL of the current page so any location magic doesn't apply.

Answer 1

It looks as though the library you referenced can indeed retrieve query string values as given under the section called Query string parameters:

The .param() method is used to return the values of querystring parameters.

Pass in a string to access that parameter's value:

$.url('http://allmarkedup.com?sky=blue&grass=green').param('sky'); // returns 'blue' If no argument is passed in it will return an object literal containing a key:value map of all the querystring parameters.

$.url('http://allmarkedup.com?sky=blue&grass=green').param(); // returns { 'sky':'blue', 'grass':'green' } Note that the .param() method will work on both ampersand-split and semicolon-split querystrings.

• user447356: This probably should be used together with decodeURIComponent to achieve what the OP wants..
• bloudermilk: The combination of mellamokb's answer, Shadow Wizard's comment and replacing +s with spaces worked worked perfectly. Thanks!

Answer 2

you can use your own small lightweight code to do just that :

 function getParam(url, param) {
 if (!url.indexOf('?')) {
 return 'undefined';
 }
 url = url.split('?')[1];
 var arr = url.split('&');
 for (var i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
 var key = arr[i].split('=')[0], val = arr[i].split('=')[1];
 if (key === param) {
 return val;
 }
 }
 return 'undefined';
 }