Remove querystring from URL

Question

What is an easy way to remove the querystring from a Path in Javascript? I have seen a plugin for Jquery that uses window.location.search. I can not do that: The URL in my case is a variable that is set from AJAX.

var testURL = '/Products/List?SortDirection=dsc&Sort=price&Page=3&Page2=3&SortOrder=dsc'

Answer 1

2nd Update: In attempt to provide a comprehensive answer, I am benchmarking the three methods proposed in the various answers.

var testURL = '/Products/List?SortDirection=dsc&Sort=price&Page=3&Page2=3';
var i;

// Testing the substring method
i = 0;
console.time('10k substring');
while (i < 10000) {
    testURL.substring(0, testURL.indexOf('?'));
    i++;
}
console.timeEnd('10k substring');

// Testing the split method
i = 0;
console.time('10k split');
while (i < 10000) {
    testURL.split('?')[0]; 
    i++;
}
console.timeEnd('10k split');

// Testing the RegEx method
i = 0;
var re = new RegExp("[^?]+");
console.time('10k regex');
while (i < 10000) {
    testURL.match(re)[0]; 
    i++;
}
console.timeEnd('10k regex');

Results in Firefox 3.5.8 on Mac OS X 10.6.2:

10k substring:  16ms
10k split:      25ms
10k regex:      44ms

Results in Chrome 5.0.307.11 on Mac OS X 10.6.2:

10k substring:  14ms
10k split:      20ms
10k regex:      15ms

Note that the substring method is inferior in functionality as it returns a blank string if the URL does not contain a querystring. The other two methods would return the full URL, as expected. However it is interesting to note that the substring method is the fastest, especially in Firefox.

---

1st UPDATE: Actually the split() method suggested by Robusto is a better solution that the one I suggested earlier, since it will work even when there is no querystring:

var testURL = '/Products/List?SortDirection=dsc&Sort=price&Page=3&Page2=3';
testURL.split('?')[0];    // Returns: "/Products/List"

var testURL2 = '/Products/List';
testURL2.split('?')[0];    // Returns: "/Products/List"

---

Original Answer:

var testURL = '/Products/List?SortDirection=dsc&Sort=price&Page=3&Page2=3';
testURL.substring(0, testURL.indexOf('?'));    // Returns: "/Products/List"

Answer 2

If you need to perform complex operation on URL, you can take a look to the jQuery url parser plugin.

Answer 3

An easy way to get this is:

function getPathFromUrl(url) {
  return url.split("?")[0];
}

Answer 4

If you're into RegEx....

var newURL = testURL.match(new RegExp("[^?]+"))