getParameterByName() and getCookieByName()
Date: 21 Dec 2012Author: Erik Dubbelboer
When writing some code that should be as small as possible you don’t want to include jQuery, MooTools or any other library. These two functions are the functions that I miss most in this case, and I actually think these should implemented natively by the browsers.
getParameterByName(name) returns the value of the named url parameter.
getCookieByName(name) returns the value of the cookie with the specified name.
These functions work in: IE 6+, Firefox 6+, Chrome 22+, Safari 6+ and Opera 12+.
getParameterByName
function getParameterByName(name) {
var res = new RegExp(
// Parameter names always start after a ? or &.
'[\?&]' +
// Make sure any [ or ] are escaped in the name.
name.replace(/\[/g, '\\\[').replace(/\]/g, '\\\]') +
// Either match a =... or match an empty value.
// Values can be terminated by an & a # or the end of the string ($).
'(?:=([^&#]*))?(?:[&#]|$)'
).exec(window.location.search);
return res ?
(res[1] ? // res[1] will be undefined for a parameter without value.
decodeURIComponent(res[1].replace(/\+/g, ' ')) : ''
) : null;
}getCookieByName
function getCookieByName(name) {
// According to RFC 2109 cookies can either be separated by ';' or ','.
var res = new RegExp(
// Beginning of the string or just after the previous cookie.
// Skip the whitespace.
'(?:^|[,;])\\s*' +
name +
// Value ending in a ';', ',' or the end of the string.
'=([^,;]*)(?:[,;]|$)').exec(document.cookie);
return res ? res[1] : null;
}