How do I add active class to a current <a> without href?

Question

I want to add an active class to the current <a> without href.
I have this language list:

<ol>
    <li>
        <a data-value="en">English</a>
    </li>
    <li>
        <a data-value="de">Deutsch</a>
    </li>
    <li>
        <a data-value="nl">Nederlands</a>
    </li>
</ol>

And this jquery:

a.click(function(event) {
    var url = location.href = "index.php?lang=" + $(this).attr("data-value");
location.href = url;    
});

I trying to add class active to <a> as the following:

a.removeClass('active');
    $(this).addClass('active');

But when i change language the page refresh and the .addClass doesn't work, so i tried to add class active based on URL (the url of pages is mysite.com/index.php?lang=en, mysite.com/index.php?lang=de, etc):

var href = jQuery(this).find('a').attr('href');
$('a[href="' + href + '"]').addClass('current');

but even this doesn't work!
I assume that the problem is caused from data-value, so how can I add active class to the current without href and add the class also after the refresh?

Answer 1

You can determine the language from the current location and then use that to find the correct anchor:

var lang;

if (lang = location.href.match(/lang=([a-z]{2})/)) {
  $('[data-value=' + lang[1] + ']').addClass('active');
}