Using Javascript to get URL Vars, not working when multiple values present in QueryString

Question

Hi, I am using a Javascript function to get the values of a URL to pass to jQuery using the function below:

 function getUrlVars()
    {
        var vars = [], hash;
        var hashes = window.location.href.slice(window.location.href.indexOf('?') + 1).split('&');
        for(var i = 0; i < hashes.length; i++)
        {
            hash = hashes[i].split('=');
            vars.push(hash[0]);
            vars[hash[0]] = hash[1];
        }
    return vars;
    }

And then setting the value like this:

 var type = getUrlVars()["type"]

This all works perfectly, however I have just come into a situation where I need to get multiple values, one of my form elements are checkboxes where multiple values can be checked, so my URL will look something like this:

 http://www.domain.com/test.php?type=1&cuisine[]=23&cuisine[]=43&name=test

If I alert out the cuisine value using the function above I only ever get the final value:

 alert (getUrlVars()["cuisine[]"]);

Would alert "43".

What I would like it to be is a comma delimited string of all "cuisine" values. ie in the above example "23,43"

Any help very welcome! In case any solution requires it I am using PHP 5.3 and Jquery 1.4

Answer 1

    function getUrlVars()
    {
        var vars = [], hash;
        var hashes = window.location.href.slice(window.location.href.indexOf('?') + 1).split('&');
        for(var i = 0; i < hashes.length; i++)
        {
            hash = hashes[i].split('=');

            if($.inArray(hash[0], vars)>-1)
            {
                vars[hash[0]]+=","+hash[1];
            }
            else
            {
                vars.push(hash[0]);
                vars[hash[0]] = hash[1];
            }
        }

        return vars;
    }

Answer 2

Try this plugin

Answer 3

You just have to check in you for loop if vars[hash[0]] already exists and if so then instead of doing vars[hash[0]] = hash[1]; you'll do vars[hash[0]] += ',' + hash[1];

Answer 4

A more proper solution, as the query string should have unique keys is to add a hidden field to the form, and then in the onsubmit event you loop over the checkboxes and set the value of the hidden field to the aggregated values form the checkboxes.

The script

function getValues(){
    var inputs= document.getElementById("myForm").getElementsByTagName("input"), i=inputs.length;
    var values=[];
    while (i--){
        if (inputs[i].type == "checkbox" && inputs[i].checked) {
            values.push(inputs[i].value);
        }
    }
    document.getElementById("hiddenField").value=values.join();
}

And the HTML

<form id="myForm" onsubmit="getValues()">
<input type="hidden" name="values" id="hiddenField"/>
<input type="checkbox" id="chk1" value="1"/>
<input type="checkbox" id="chk1" value="2"/>
<input type="submit" value="submit"/>
</form>

This is better than overriding the default (and expected behavior) of key/value based parameters.