[javascript] How do I parse a URL into hostname and path in javascript?

I would like to take a string

var a = "http://example.com/aa/bb/"

and process it into an object such that

a.hostname == "example.com"

and

a.pathname == "/aa/bb"

The modern way:

new URL("http://example.com/aa/bb/")

Returns an object with properties hostname and pathname, along with a few others.

The first argument is a relative or absolute URL; if it's relative, then you need to specify the second argument (the base URL). For example, for a URL relative to the current page:

new URL("/aa/bb/", location)

In addition to browsers, this API is also available in Node.js since v7, through require('url').URL.

Just use url.js library (for web and node.js).

https://github.com/websanova/js-url

url: http://example.com?param=test#param=again

url('?param'); // test
url('#param'); // again
url('protocol'); // http
url('port'); // 80
url('domain'); // example.com
url('tld'); // com

etc...

found here: https://gist.github.com/jlong/2428561

var parser = document.createElement('a');
parser.href = "http://example.com:3000/pathname/?search=test#hash";

parser.protocol; // => "http:"
parser.host;     // => "example.com:3000"
parser.hostname; // => "example.com"
parser.port;     // => "3000"
parser.pathname; // => "/pathname/"
parser.hash;     // => "#hash"
parser.search;   // => "?search=test"
parser.origin;   // => "http://example.com:3000"

Why do not use it?

        $scope.get_location=function(url_str){
        var parser = document.createElement('a');
        parser.href =url_str;//"http://example.com:3000/pathname/?search=test#hash";
        var info={
            protocol:parser.protocol,   
            hostname:parser.hostname, // => "example.com"
            port:parser.port,     // => "3000"
            pathname:parser.pathname, // => "/pathname/"
            search:parser.search,   // => "?search=test"
            hash:parser.hash,     // => "#hash"
            host:parser.host, // => "example.com:3000"      
        }
        return info;
    }
    alert( JSON.stringify( $scope.get_location("http://localhost:257/index.php/deploy/?asd=asd#asd"),null,4 ) );

function parseUrl(url) {
    var m = url.match(/^(([^:\/?#]+:)?(?:\/\/((?:([^\/?#:]*):([^\/?#:]*)@)?([^\/?#:]*)(?::([^\/?#:]*))?)))?([^?#]*)(\?[^#]*)?(#.*)?$/),
        r = {
            hash: m[10] || "",                   // #asd
            host: m[3] || "",                    // localhost:257
            hostname: m[6] || "",                // localhost
            href: m[0] || "",                    // http://username:password@localhost:257/deploy/?asd=asd#asd
            origin: m[1] || "",                  // http://username:password@localhost:257
            pathname: m[8] || (m[1] ? "/" : ""), // /deploy/
            port: m[7] || "",                    // 257
            protocol: m[2] || "",                // http:
            search: m[9] || "",                  // ?asd=asd
            username: m[4] || "",                // username
            password: m[5] || ""                 // password
        };
    if (r.protocol.length == 2) {
        r.protocol = "file:///" + r.protocol.toUpperCase();
        r.origin = r.protocol + "//" + r.host;
    }
    r.href = r.origin + r.pathname + r.search + r.hash;
    return r;
};
parseUrl("http://username:password@localhost:257/deploy/?asd=asd#asd");

It works with both absolute and relative urls

Here's a simple function using a regexp that imitates the a tag behavior.

Pros

• predictable behaviour (no cross browser issues)
• doesn't need the DOM
• it's really short.

Cons

• The regexp is a bit difficult to read

-

function getLocation(href) {
    var match = href.match(/^(https?\:)\/\/(([^:\/?#]*)(?:\:([0-9]+))?)([\/]{0,1}[^?#]*)(\?[^#]*|)(#.*|)$/);
    return match && {
        href: href,
        protocol: match[1],
        host: match[2],
        hostname: match[3],
        port: match[4],
        pathname: match[5],
        search: match[6],
        hash: match[7]
    }
}

-

getLocation("http://example.com/");
/*
{
    "protocol": "http:",
    "host": "example.com",
    "hostname": "example.com",
    "port": undefined,
    "pathname": "/"
    "search": "",
    "hash": "",
}
*/

getLocation("http://example.com:3000/pathname/?search=test#hash");
/*
{
    "protocol": "http:",
    "host": "example.com:3000",
    "hostname": "example.com",
    "port": "3000",
    "pathname": "/pathname/",
    "search": "?search=test",
    "hash": "#hash"
}
*/

EDIT:

Here's a breakdown of the regular expression

var reURLInformation = new RegExp([
    '^(https?:)//', // protocol
    '(([^:/?#]*)(?::([0-9]+))?)', // host (hostname and port)
    '(/{0,1}[^?#]*)', // pathname
    '(\\?[^#]*|)', // search
    '(#.*|)$' // hash
].join(''));
var match = href.match(reURLInformation);

var loc = window.location;  // => "http://example.com:3000/pathname/?search=test#hash"

returns the currentUrl.

If you want to pass your own string as a url (doesn't work in IE11):

var loc = new URL("http://example.com:3000/pathname/?search=test#hash")

Then you can parse it like:

loc.protocol; // => "http:"
loc.host;     // => "example.com:3000"
loc.hostname; // => "example.com"
loc.port;     // => "3000"
loc.pathname; // => "/pathname/"
loc.hash;     // => "#hash"
loc.search;   // => "?search=test"

a simple hack with the first answer

var getLocation = function(href=window.location.href) {
    var l = document.createElement("a");
    l.href = href;
    return l;
};

this can used even without argument to figure out the current hostname getLocation().hostname will give current hostname

js-uri (available on Google Code) takes a string URL and resolves a URI object from it:

var some_uri = new URI("http://www.example.com/foo/bar");

alert(some_uri.authority); // www.example.com
alert(some_uri);           // http://www.example.com/foo/bar

var blah      = new URI("blah");
var blah_full = blah.resolve(some_uri);
alert(blah_full);         // http://www.example.com/foo/blah

Simple and robust solution using the module pattern. This includes a fix for IE where the pathname does not always have a leading forward-slash (/).

I have created a Gist along with a JSFiddle which offers a more dynamic parser. I recommend you check it out and provide feedback.

var URLParser = (function (document) {
    var PROPS = 'protocol hostname host pathname port search hash href'.split(' ');
    var self = function (url) {
        this.aEl = document.createElement('a');
        this.parse(url);
    };
    self.prototype.parse = function (url) {
        this.aEl.href = url;
        if (this.aEl.host == "") {
           this.aEl.href = this.aEl.href;
        }
        PROPS.forEach(function (prop) {
            switch (prop) {
                case 'hash':
                    this[prop] = this.aEl[prop].substr(1);
                    break;
                default:
                    this[prop] = this.aEl[prop];
            }
        }, this);
        if (this.pathname.indexOf('/') !== 0) {
            this.pathname = '/' + this.pathname;
        }
        this.requestUri = this.pathname + this.search;
    };
    self.prototype.toObj = function () {
        var obj = {};
        PROPS.forEach(function (prop) {
            obj[prop] = this[prop];
        }, this);
        obj.requestUri = this.requestUri;
        return obj;
    };
    self.prototype.toString = function () {
        return this.href;
    };
    return self;
})(document);

Demo

var URLParser = (function(document) {_x000D_
  var PROPS = 'protocol hostname host pathname port search hash href'.split(' ');_x000D_
  var self = function(url) {_x000D_
    this.aEl = document.createElement('a');_x000D_
    this.parse(url);_x000D_
  };_x000D_
  self.prototype.parse = function(url) {_x000D_
    this.aEl.href = url;_x000D_
    if (this.aEl.host == "") {_x000D_
      this.aEl.href = this.aEl.href;_x000D_
    }_x000D_
    PROPS.forEach(function(prop) {_x000D_
      switch (prop) {_x000D_
        case 'hash':_x000D_
          this[prop] = this.aEl[prop].substr(1);_x000D_
          break;_x000D_
        default:_x000D_
          this[prop] = this.aEl[prop];_x000D_
      }_x000D_
    }, this);_x000D_
    if (this.pathname.indexOf('/') !== 0) {_x000D_
      this.pathname = '/' + this.pathname;_x000D_
    }_x000D_
    this.requestUri = this.pathname + this.search;_x000D_
  };_x000D_
  self.prototype.toObj = function() {_x000D_
    var obj = {};_x000D_
    PROPS.forEach(function(prop) {_x000D_
      obj[prop] = this[prop];_x000D_
    }, this);_x000D_
    obj.requestUri = this.requestUri;_x000D_
    return obj;_x000D_
  };_x000D_
  self.prototype.toString = function() {_x000D_
    return this.href;_x000D_
  };_x000D_
  return self;_x000D_
})(document);_x000D_
_x000D_
/* Main */_x000D_
var out = document.getElementById('out');_x000D_
var urls = [_x000D_
  'https://www.example.org:5887/foo/bar?a=1&b=2#section-1',_x000D_
  'ftp://www.files.com:22/folder?id=7'_x000D_
];_x000D_
var parser = new URLParser();_x000D_
urls.forEach(function(url) {_x000D_
  parser.parse(url);_x000D_
  println(out, JSON.stringify(parser.toObj(), undefined, ' '), 0, '#0000A7');_x000D_
});_x000D_
_x000D_
/* Utility functions */_x000D_
function print(el, text, bgColor, fgColor) {_x000D_
  var span = document.createElement('span');_x000D_
  span.innerHTML = text;_x000D_
  span.style['backgroundColor'] = bgColor || '#FFFFFF';_x000D_
  span.style['color'] = fgColor || '#000000';_x000D_
  el.appendChild(span);_x000D_
}_x000D_
function println(el, text, bgColor, fgColor) {_x000D_
  print(el, text, bgColor, fgColor);_x000D_
  el.appendChild(document.createElement('br'));_x000D_
}

body {_x000D_
  background: #444;_x000D_
}_x000D_
span {_x000D_
  background-color: #fff;_x000D_
  border: thin solid black;_x000D_
  display: inline-block;_x000D_
}_x000D_
#out {_x000D_
  display: block;_x000D_
  font-family: Consolas, Menlo, Monaco, Lucida Console, Liberation Mono, DejaVu Sans Mono, Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, Courier New, monospace, serif;_x000D_
  font-size: 12px;_x000D_
  white-space: pre;_x000D_
}

<div id="out"></div>

Output

{
 "protocol": "https:",
 "hostname": "www.example.org",
 "host": "www.example.org:5887",
 "pathname": "/foo/bar",
 "port": "5887",
 "search": "?a=1&b=2",
 "hash": "section-1",
 "href": "https://www.example.org:5887/foo/bar?a=1&b=2#section-1",
 "requestUri": "/foo/bar?a=1&b=2"
}
{
 "protocol": "ftp:",
 "hostname": "www.files.com",
 "host": "www.files.com:22",
 "pathname": "/folder",
 "port": "22",
 "search": "?id=7",
 "hash": "",
 "href": "ftp://www.files.com:22/folder?id=7",
 "requestUri": "/folder?id=7"
}

The AngularJS way - fiddle here: http://jsfiddle.net/PT5BG/4/

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Parse URL using AngularJS</title>
</head>
<body ng-app ng-controller="AppCtrl" ng-init="init()">

<h3>Parse URL using AngularJS</h3>

url: <input type="text" ng-model="url" value="" style="width:780px;">

<ul>
    <li>href = {{parser.href}}</li>
    <li>protocol = {{parser.protocol}}</li>
    <li>host = {{parser.host}}</li>
    <li>hostname = {{parser.hostname}}</li>
    <li>port = {{parser.port}}</li>
    <li>pathname = {{parser.pathname}}</li>
    <li>hash = {{parser.hash}}</li>
    <li>search = {{parser.search}}</li>
</ul>

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.0.6/angular.min.js"></script>

<script>
function AppCtrl($scope) {

    $scope.$watch('url', function() {
        $scope.parser.href = $scope.url;
    });

    $scope.init = function() {
        $scope.parser = document.createElement('a');
        $scope.url = window.location;
    }

}
</script>

</body>
</html>

today I meet this problem and I found: URL - MDN Web APIs

var url = new URL("http://test.example.com/dir/subdir/file.html#hash");

This return:

{ hash:"#hash", host:"test.example.com", hostname:"test.example.com", href:"http://test.example.com/dir/subdir/file.html#hash", origin:"http://test.example.com", password:"", pathname:"/dir/subdir/file.html", port:"", protocol:"http:", search: "", username: "" }

Hoping my first contribution helps you !

Here is a version that I copied from https://gist.github.com/1847816, but rewritten so it's easier to read and debug. The purpose of copying the of the anchor data to another variable named "result" is because the anchor data is pretty long, and so copying a limited number of values to the result will help simplify the result.

/**
 * See: https://gist.github.com/1847816
 * Parse a URI, returning an object similar to Location
 * Usage: var uri = parseUri("hello?search#hash")
 */
function parseUri(url) {

  var result = {};

  var anchor = document.createElement('a');
  anchor.href = url;

  var keys = 'protocol hostname host pathname port search hash href'.split(' ');
  for (var keyIndex in keys) {
    var currentKey = keys[keyIndex]; 
    result[currentKey] = anchor[currentKey];
  }

  result.toString = function() { return anchor.href; };
  result.requestUri = result.pathname + result.search;  
  return result;

}

For those looking for a modern solution that works in IE, Firefox, AND Chrome:

None of these solutions that use a hyperlink element will work the same in chrome. If you pass an invalid (or blank) url to chrome, it will always return the host where the script is called from. So in IE you will get blank, whereas in Chrome you will get localhost (or whatever).

If you are trying to look at the referrer, this is deceitful. You will want to make sure that the host you get back was in the original url to deal with this:

    function getHostNameFromUrl(url) {
        // <summary>Parses the domain/host from a given url.</summary>
        var a = document.createElement("a");
        a.href = url;

        // Handle chrome which will default to domain where script is called from if invalid
        return url.indexOf(a.hostname) != -1 ? a.hostname : '';
    }

Cross-browser URL parsing, works around the relative path problem for IE 6, 7, 8 and 9:

function ParsedUrl(url) {
    var parser = document.createElement("a");
    parser.href = url;

    // IE 8 and 9 dont load the attributes "protocol" and "host" in case the source URL
    // is just a pathname, that is, "/example" and not "http://domain.com/example".
    parser.href = parser.href;

    // IE 7 and 6 wont load "protocol" and "host" even with the above workaround,
    // so we take the protocol/host from window.location and place them manually
    if (parser.host === "") {
        var newProtocolAndHost = window.location.protocol + "//" + window.location.host;
        if (url.charAt(1) === "/") {
            parser.href = newProtocolAndHost + url;
        } else {
            // the regex gets everything up to the last "/"
            // /path/takesEverythingUpToAndIncludingTheLastForwardSlash/thisIsIgnored
            // "/" is inserted before because IE takes it of from pathname
            var currentFolder = ("/"+parser.pathname).match(/.*\//)[0];
            parser.href = newProtocolAndHost + currentFolder + url;
        }
    }

    // copies all the properties to this object
    var properties = ['host', 'hostname', 'hash', 'href', 'port', 'protocol', 'search'];
    for (var i = 0, n = properties.length; i < n; i++) {
      this[properties[i]] = parser[properties[i]];
    }

    // pathname is special because IE takes the "/" of the starting of pathname
    this.pathname = (parser.pathname.charAt(0) !== "/" ? "/" : "") + parser.pathname;
}

Usage (demo JSFiddle here):

var myUrl = new ParsedUrl("http://www.example.com:8080/path?query=123#fragment");

Result:

{
    hash: "#fragment"
    host: "www.example.com:8080"
    hostname: "www.example.com"
    href: "http://www.example.com:8080/path?query=123#fragment"
    pathname: "/path"
    port: "8080"
    protocol: "http:"
    search: "?query=123"
}

Use https://www.npmjs.com/package/uri-parse-lib for this

var t = parserURI("http://user:[email protected]:8080/directory/file.ext?query=1&next=4&sed=5#anchor");

freddiefujiwara's answer is pretty good but I also needed to support relative URLs within Internet Explorer. I came up with the following solution:

function getLocation(href) {
    var location = document.createElement("a");
    location.href = href;
    // IE doesn't populate all link properties when setting .href with a relative URL,
    // however .href will return an absolute URL which then can be used on itself
    // to populate these additional fields.
    if (location.host == "") {
      location.href = location.href;
    }
    return location;
};

Now use it to get the needed properties:

var a = getLocation('http://example.com/aa/bb/');
document.write(a.hostname);
document.write(a.pathname);

Example:

function getLocation(href) {
  var location = document.createElement("a");
  location.href = href;
  // IE doesn't populate all link properties when setting .href with a relative URL,
  // however .href will return an absolute URL which then can be used on itself
  // to populate these additional fields.
  if (location.host == "") {
    location.href = location.href;
  }
  return location;
};
var urlToParse = 'http://example.com/aa/bb/',
  a = getLocation(urlToParse);
document.write('Absolute URL: ' + urlToParse);
document.write('<br />');
document.write('Hostname: ' + a.hostname);
document.write('<br />');
document.write('Pathname: ' + a.pathname);

Stop reinventing the wheel. Use https://github.com/medialize/URI.js/

var uri = new URI("http://example.org:80/foo/hello.html");
// get host
uri.host(); // returns string "example.org:80"
// set host
uri.host("example.org:80");

What about simple regular expression?

url = "http://www.example.com/path/to/somwhere";
urlParts = /^(?:\w+\:\/\/)?([^\/]+)(.*)$/.exec(url);
hostname = urlParts[1]; // www.example.com
path = urlParts[2]; // /path/to/somwhere

Expanded on acdcjunior solution by adding "searchParam" function
Mimicking the URL object, added "searchParam" to parse query string
Works for IE 6, 7, 8 9, 10, 11

USAGE - (JSFiddle Link)

// USAGE:
var myUrl = new ParsedUrl("http://www.example.com/path?var1=123&var2=abc#fragment");
console.log(myUrl);
console.log(myUrl.searchParam('var1'));
console.log(myUrl.searchParam('var2'));

OUTPUT - (JSFiddle Link)

{
  hash: "#fragment",
  host: "www.example.com:8080",
  hostname: "www.example.com",
  href: "http://www.example.com:8080/path?var1=123&var2=abc#fragment",
  pathname: "/path",
  port: "80",
  protocol: "http:",
  search: "?var1=123&var2=abc"
}

"123"
"abc"

CODE - (JSFiddle Link)

function ParsedUrl(url) {
    var parser = document.createElement("a");
    parser.href = url;
    
    // IE 8 and 9 dont load the attributes "protocol" and "host" in case the source URL
    // is just a pathname, that is, "/example" and not "http://www.example.com/example".
    parser.href = parser.href;
    
    // IE 7 and 6 wont load "protocol" and "host" even with the above workaround,
    // so we take the protocol/host from window.location and place them manually
    if (parser.host === "") {
        var newProtocolAndHost = window.location.protocol + "//" + window.location.host;
        if (url.charAt(1) === "/") {
            parser.href = newProtocolAndHost + url;
        } else {
            // the regex gets everything up to the last "/"
            // /path/takesEverythingUpToAndIncludingTheLastForwardSlash/thisIsIgnored
            // "/" is inserted before because IE takes it of from pathname
            var currentFolder = ("/"+parser.pathname).match(/.*\//)[0];
            parser.href = newProtocolAndHost + currentFolder + url;
        }
    }
    
    // copies all the properties to this object
    var properties = ['host', 'hostname', 'hash', 'href', 'port', 'protocol', 'search'];
    for (var i = 0, n = properties.length; i < n; i++) {
      this[properties[i]] = parser[properties[i]];
    }
    
    // pathname is special because IE takes the "/" of the starting of pathname
    this.pathname = (parser.pathname.charAt(0) !== "/" ? "/" : "") + parser.pathname;
  
  //search Params
  this.searchParam =  function(variable) {
    var query = (this.search.indexOf('?') === 0) ? this.search.substr(1) : this.search;
    var vars = query.split('&');
    for (var i = 0; i < vars.length; i++) {
        var pair = vars[i].split('=');
        if (decodeURIComponent(pair[0]) == variable) {
            return decodeURIComponent(pair[1]);
        }
    }
    console.log('Query variable %s not found', variable);
    return '';
    };
}

You can also use parse_url() function from Locutus project (former php.js).

Code:

parse_url('http://username:password@hostname/path?arg=value#anchor');

Result:

{
  scheme: 'http',
  host: 'hostname',
  user: 'username',
  pass: 'password',
  path: '/path',
  query: 'arg=value',
  fragment: 'anchor'
}