How can you check for a #hash in a URL using JavaScript?

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/298503

Question

I have some jQuery/JavaScript code that I want to run only when there is a hash (#) anchor link in a URL. How can you check for this character using JavaScript? I need a simple catch-all test that would detect URLs like these:

  • example.com/page.html#anchor
  • example.com/page.html#anotheranchor

Basically something along the lines of:

if (thereIsAHashInTheUrl) {        
    do this;
} else {
    do this;
}

If anyone could point me in the right direction, that would be much appreciated.

Was it helpful?

Solution

Simple:

if(window.location.hash) {
  // Fragment exists
} else {
  // Fragment doesn't exist
}

OTHER TIPS

  if(window.location.hash) {
      var hash = window.location.hash.substring(1); //Puts hash in variable, and removes the # character
      alert (hash);
      // hash found
  } else {
      // No hash found
  }

Put the following:

<script type="text/javascript">
    if (location.href.indexOf("#") != -1) {
        // Your code in here accessing the string like this
        // location.href.substr(location.href.indexOf("#"))
    }
</script>

If the URI is not the document's location this snippet will do what you want.

var url = 'example.com/page.html#anchor',
    hash = url.split('#')[1];

if (hash) {
    alert(hash)
} else {
    // do something else
}

Have you tried this?

if (url.indexOf("#") != -1)
{
}

(Where url is the URL you want to check, obviously.)

$('#myanchor').click(function(){
    window.location.hash = "myanchor"; //set hash
    return false; //disables browser anchor jump behavior
});
$(window).bind('hashchange', function () { //detect hash change
    var hash = window.location.hash.slice(1); //hash to string (= "myanchor")
    //do sth here, hell yeah!
});

This will solve the problem ;)

window.location.hash

will return the hash identifier

...or there's a jquery selector:

$('a[href^="#"]')

Here's what you can do to periodically check for a change of hash, and then call a function to process the hash value.

var hash = false; 
checkHash();

function checkHash(){ 
    if(window.location.hash != hash) { 
        hash = window.location.hash; 
        processHash(hash); 
    } t=setTimeout("checkHash()",400); 
}

function processHash(hash){
    alert(hash);
}

Most people are aware of the URL properties in document.location. That's great if you're only interested in the current page. But the question was about being able to parse anchors on a page not the page itself.

What most people seem to miss is that those same URL properties are also available to anchor elements:

// To process anchors on click    
jQuery('a').click(function () {
   if (this.hash) {
      // Clicked anchor has a hash
   } else {
      // Clicked anchor does not have a hash
   }
});

// To process anchors without waiting for an event
jQuery('a').each(function () {
   if (this.hash) {
      // Current anchor has a hash
   } else {
      // Current anchor does not have a hash
   }
});

function getHash() {
  if (window.location.hash) {
    var hash = window.location.hash.substring(1);

    if (hash.length === 0) { 
      return false;
    } else { 
      return hash; 
    }
  } else { 
    return false; 
  }
}

Partridge and Gareths comments above are great. They deserve a separate answer. Apparently, hash and search properties are available on any html Link object:

<a id="test" href="foo.html?bar#quz">test</a>
<script type="text/javascript">
   alert(document.getElementById('test').search); //bar
   alert(document.getElementById('test').hash); //quz
</script>

Or

<a href="bar.html?foo" onclick="alert(this.search)">SAY FOO</a>

Should you need this on a regular string variable and happen to have jQuery around, this should work:

var mylink = "foo.html?bar#quz";

if ($('<a href="'+mylink+'">').get(0).search=='bar')) {
    // do stuff
}

(but its maybe a bit overdone .. )

var requestedHash = ((window.location.hash.substring(1).split("#",1))+"?").split("?",1);

Throwing this in here as a method for abstracting location properties from arbitrary URI-like strings. Although window.location instanceof Location is true, any attempt to invoke Location will tell you that it's an illegal constructor. You can still get to things like hash, query, protocol etc by setting your string as the href property of a DOM anchor element, which will then share all the address properties with window.location.

Simplest way of doing this is:

var a = document.createElement('a');
a.href = string;

string.hash;

For convenience, I wrote a little library that utilises this to replace the native Location constructor with one that will take strings and produce window.location-like objects: Location.js

Usually clicks go first than location changes, so after a click is a good idea to setTimeOut to get updated window.location.hash

$(".nav").click(function(){
    setTimeout(function(){
        updatedHash = location.hash
    },100);
});

or you can listen location with:

window.onhashchange = function(evt){
   updatedHash = "#" + evt.newURL.split("#")[1]
};

I wrote a jQuery plugin that does something like what you want to do.

It's a simple anchor router.

Here is a simple function that returns true or false (has / doesn't have a hashtag):

var urlToCheck = 'http://www.domain.com/#hashtag';

function hasHashtag(url) {
    return (url.indexOf("#") != -1) ? true : false;
}

// Condition
if(hasHashtag(urlToCheck)) {
    // Do something if has
}
else {
    // Do something if doesn't
}

Returns true in this case.

Based on @jon-skeet's comment.

This is a simple way to test this for the current page URL:

  function checkHash(){
      return (location.hash ? true : false);
  }

sometimes you get the full query string such as "#anchorlink?firstname=mark"

this is my script to get the hash value:

var hashId = window.location.hash;
hashId = hashId.match(/#[^?&\/]*/g);

returns -> #anchorlink
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