JavaScript Location Object

The JavaScript Location object is a child object of the Window Object and is used to store information about the current URL of the Window object.

The location object contains a number of methods and properties that enable the JavaScript developer to manipluate the current URL of a window. A commom example is to progammatically change the current window URL. This can be done by assigning a new URL string to the href property of the Location option:

window.location.href="http://www.techotopia.com";

It is also possible to read the URL of the current document. The simplest form of this is to access the href property of the Location object of the current window:

var currentURL=window.location.href;

It is also possible to access the various components that go to make up a complete URL. Suppose, for example, that the current URL is:

http://www.techotopia.com:80/order.cgi?batch=1#intro

the following properties represent the various elements of the URL:

• location.protocol - the protocol section of the URL (for example http: or https:)

• location.hostname - the hostname (for example www.techotopia.com)

• location.port - the HTTP Port number of the URL (for example 80)

• location.search - the search portionm of the URL (batch=1 in the example above)

• location.hash - the anchor name in the URL (#intro in our example)