Javascript [Electronic resources] : The Definitive Guide (4th Edition) نسخه متنی

Availability

JavaScript 1.0; enhanced in JavaScript 1.1

Synopsis

location
window.location

Properties

The
properties of a Location object refer to the various portions of the
current document's URL. In each of the following property
descriptions, the example given is a portion of this (fictitious)
URL:

http://www.oreilly.com:1234/catalog/searchl?q=JavaScript&m=10#results

hash

A read/write string property that specifies the anchor portion of the
URL, including the leading hash (#) mark. For example:
"#result". This portion of the document URL specifies the
name of an anchor within the document.

host

A read/write string property that specifies the hostname and port
portions of the URL. For example, "www.oreilly.com:1234".

hostname

A read/write string property that specifies the hostname portion of a
URL. For example "www.oreilly.com".

href

A read/write string property that specifies the complete text of the
document's URL, unlike other Location properties which specify
only portions of the URL. Setting this property to a new URL causes
the browser to read and display the contents of the new URL.

pathname

A read/write string property that specifies the pathname portion of a
URL. For example "/catalog/searchl".

port

A read/write string (not a number) property that specifies the port
portion of a URL. For example "1234".

protocol

A read/write string property that specifies the protocol portion of a
URL, including the trailing colon. For example, "http:".

search

A read/write string property that specifies the query portion of a
URL, including the leading question mark. For example,
"?q=JavaScript&m=10".

Methods

reload( )

Reloads the current document from the cache or the server. This
method was added in JavaScript 1.1.

replace( )

Replaces the current document with a new one without generating a new
entry in the browser's session history. This method was added
in JavaScript 1.1.

Description

The Location object
is stored in the location property of the Window
object and represents the web address (the "location") of
the document currently displayed in that window. The
href property contains the complete URL of that
document, and the other properties of the Location object each
describe a portion of that URL. These properties are much like the
URL properties of the Link object.

While the Link object represents a hyperlink in a document, the
Location object represents the URL, or location, currently displayed
by the browser. But the Location object does more than that: it also

controls the location displayed by the browser.
If you assign a string containing a URL to the Location object or to
its href property, the web browser responds by
loading the newly specified URL and displaying the document it refers
to.

Instead of setting location or
location.href to replace the current URL with a
completely new one, you can also modify just a portion of the current
URL by assigning strings to the other properties of the Location
object. This creates a new URL with one new portion, which the
browser loads and displays. For example, if you set the
hash property of the Location object, you can
cause the browser to move to a named location within the current
document. Similarly, if you set the search
property, you can cause the browser to reload the current URL with a
new query string appended. If the URL refers to a server-side
program, the document resulting from the new query string may be
quite different from the original document.

In addition to its URL properties, the Location object also defines
two methods. The reload( ) method reloads the
current document, and the replace( ) method loads
a new document without creating a new history entry for it -- the
new document replaces the current one in the browser's history
list.

See Also

Link, the location property of the Window object