Passing a URL as a GET parameter in Javascript

Question

I am trying to make a bookmarklet that uses the user\'s current URL, kind of like the tinyURL bookmarklet that uses this javascript code

javascript:void(loca         


        

Answer 1

URL has a specified format. That part after ?, or to be more exactly between ? and # if exists, is called query string. It contains a list of key-value pairs - a variable name, = character and the value. Variables are separated by &:

key1=value1&key2=value2&key3=value3&key4=value4

You should escape location.href as it can contains some special characters like ?, & or #.

To escape string in JavaScript use encodeURIComponent() function like so:

location.href = "http://tinyurl.com/create.php?url=" + encodeURIComponent(location.href)

It will replace characters like & into %26. That sequence of characters isn't treated as a variable separator so it will be attached as a variable's value.