Convert relative path to absolute using JavaScript

Question

There\'s a function, which gives me urls like:

./some.css
./extra/some.css
../../lib/slider/slider.css

It\'s always a relative path.

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Answer 1

If you want to make a relative-to-absolute conversion for a link from a custom webpage in your browser (not for the page that runs your script), you can use a more enhanced version of the function suggested by @Bergi:

var resolveURL=function resolve(url, base){
    if('string'!==typeof url || !url){
        return null; // wrong or empty url
    }
    else if(url.match(/^[a-z]+\:\/\//i)){ 
        return url; // url is absolute already 
    }
    else if(url.match(/^\/\//)){ 
        return 'http:'+url; // url is absolute already 
    }
    else if(url.match(/^[a-z]+\:/i)){ 
        return url; // data URI, mailto:, tel:, etc.
    }
    else if('string'!==typeof base){
        var a=document.createElement('a'); 
        a.href=url; // try to resolve url without base  
        if(!a.pathname){ 
            return null; // url not valid 
        }
        return 'http://'+url;
    }
    else{ 
        base=resolve(base); // check base
        if(base===null){
            return null; // wrong base
        }
    }
    var a=document.createElement('a'); 
    a.href=base;

    if(url[0]==='/'){ 
        base=[]; // rooted path
    }
    else{ 
        base=a.pathname.split('/'); // relative path
        base.pop(); 
    }
    url=url.split('/');
    for(var i=0; i

It'll return null if something is wrong.

Usage:

resolveURL('./some.css', 'http://example.com/stats/2012/'); 
// returns http://example.com/stats/2012/some.css

resolveURL('extra/some.css', 'http://example.com/stats/2012/');
// returns http://example.com/stats/2012/extra/some.css

resolveURL('../../lib/slider/slider.css', 'http://example.com/stats/2012/');
// returns http://example.com/lib/slider/slider.css

resolveURL('/rootFolder/some.css', 'https://example.com/stats/2012/');
// returns https://example.com/rootFolder/some.css

resolveURL('localhost');
// returns http://localhost

resolveURL('../non_existing_file', 'example.com')
// returns null