Question

I need a function to get only the empty href query parameter names so I can replace them later with values from another array. After hours of failing at regular expressions, here is what i resorted to:

/** * getEmptyQueryParams(URL) * Input: URL with href params * Returns an array containing all empty href query parameters. */ function getEmptyQueryParams(URL) {      var params = new Array( );     var non_empty_params = new Array( );     var regex = /[\?&]([^=]+)=/g; // gets all query params     var regex2 = /[\?&]([a-zA-Z_]+)=[\w]/g; // gets non empty query params       while( ( results = regex.exec( URL ) ) != null )     {         params.push( results[1] );     }     while( ( results = regex2.exec( URL ) ) != null )     {         non_empty_params.push( results[1] );     }     while(non_empty_params.length > 0)     {         for(y=0;y < params.length;y++)         {             if(params[y] == non_empty_params[0])             {                 params.splice(y,1);             }         }         non_empty_params.shift();     }     return params; } 

It works, but looks ugly as hell… Is there any better way to do it? Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

I just tested that this works in Opera and Chrom, the two browsers I have open right now:

function getEmptyQueryParams(URL) {     var params = new Array();     var regex = /[\?&]([^=]+)=(?=$|&)/g; // gets non empty query params     while( ( results = regex.exec( URL ) ) != null )     {         params.push( results[1] );     }      return params; }