Question

I’m trying to write a function that will remove a query argument from a url in javascript. I think I have it using regex, but I’m not sure if I’ve missed anything. Also, I can’t shake the feeling that there was probably a better way to do this that didn’t involve me messing around with regex half the day and running the risk of later finding out that I didn’t take some kind of corner case into account.

remove_query_argument = function(url, arg){

    var query_arg_regex;

    // Remove occurences that come after '&' symbols and not the first one after the '?'
    query_arg_regex = new RegExp('&' + arg + '=[^(?:&|$)]*', 'ig');
    url = url.replace(query_arg_regex, '');

    // remove the instance that the argument to remove is the first one
    query_arg_regex = new RegExp('[?]' + arg + '[^(?:&|$)]*(&?)', 'i');
    url = url.replace(query_arg_regex, function (match, capture) {
        if( capture != '&' ){
            return '';
        }else{
            return '?'
        }

    });

    return url;
}

Does anyone see any problems with this code or would like to suggest a better implementation or way of going about this?

Thanks!

Answer 1

If you have a lot of URL-related operations, you better try this awesome js library https://github.com/medialize/URI.js