How can I add or update a query string parameter?

Question

With javascript how can I add a query string parameter to the url if not present or if it present, update the current value? I am using jquery for my client side development

Answer 1

There are a lot of awkward and unnecessarily complicated answers on this page. The highest rated one, @amateur's, is quite good, although it has a bit of unnecessary fluff in the RegExp. Here is a slightly more optimal solution with cleaner RegExp and a cleaner replace call:

function updateQueryStringParamsNoHash(uri, key, value) {
  var re = new RegExp("([?&])" + key + "=[^&]*", "i");
  return re.test(uri)
       ? uri.replace(re, '$1' + key + "=" + value)
       : uri + separator + key + "=" + value
  ;
}

As an added bonus, if uri is not a string, you won't get errors for trying to call match or replace on something that may not implement those methods.

And if you want to handle the case of a hash (and you've already done a check for properly formatted HTML), you can leverage the existing function instead of writing a new function containing the same logic:

function updateQueryStringParams(url, key, value) {
    var splitURL = url.split('#');
    var hash = splitURL[1];
    var uri = updateQueryStringParamsNoHash(splitURL[0]);
    return hash == null ? uri : uri + '#' + hash;
}

Or you can make some slight changes to @Adam's otherwise excellent answer:

function updateQueryStringParameter(uri, key, value) {
  var re = new RegExp("([?&])" + key + "=[^&#]*", "i");
  if (re.test(uri)) {
    return uri.replace(re, '$1' + key + "=" + value);
  } else {
    var matchData = uri.match(/^([^#]*)(#.*)?$/);
    var separator = /\?/.test(uri) ? "&" : "?";    
    return matchData[0] + separator + key + "=" + value + (matchData[1] || '');
  }
}