Clearing URL hash

Question

Visit stackoverflow.com/#_=_ and window.location.hash evaluates to #_=_. Fine.

Now execute window.location.hash = \'\'

Answer 1

There are 2 things driving this behaviour:

• "Setting the hash property navigates to the named anchor without reloading the document." (here)
• "When you set the location object or any of its properties except hash[...]In JavaScript 1.1 and later, the effect of setting location depends on the user's setting for comparing a document to the original over the network." (here)

So basically, setting the hash property should never lead to a reload, setting any other property should lead to a reload (or perhaps an E-Tag/modified-since header check, depending on browser settings).

I would assume that for the sake of consistency, browser builders transform setting an empty hash, to setting '#' as hash. This way the url in the location bar does not lead to a reload. But this latter part is pure speculation.