Modifying a query string without reloading the page

I am creating a photo gallery, and would like to be able to change the query string and title when the photos are browsed.

The behavior I am looking for is often seen with some implementations of continuous/infinite page, where while you scroll down the query string keeps incrementing the page number (http://x.com?page=4) etc.. This should be simple in theory, but I would like something that is safe across major browsers.

I found this great post, and was trying to follow the example with window.history.pushstate, but that doesn't seem to be working for me. And I'm not sure if it is ideal because I don't really care about modifying the browser history.

I just want to be able to offer the ability to bookmark the currently viewed photo, without reloading the page every time the photo is changed.

Here is an example of infinite page that modifies query string: http://tumbledry.org/

UPDATE found this method:

window.location.href = window.location.href + '#abc';

If you are looking for Hash modification, your solution works ok. However, if you want to change the query, you can use the pushState, as you said. Here it is an example that might help you to implement it properly. I tested and it worked fine:

if (history.pushState) {
    var newurl = window.location.protocol + "//" + window.location.host + window.location.pathname + '?myNewUrlQuery=1';
    window.history.pushState({path:newurl},'',newurl);
}

It does not reload the page, but it only allows you to change the URL query. You would not be able to change the protocol or the host values. And of course that it requires modern browsers that can process HTML5 History API.

For more information:

http://diveintohtml5.info/history.html

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/API/DOM/Manipulating_the_browser_history

I want to improve Fabio's answer and create a function which adds custom key to the URL string without reloading the page.

 function insertUrlParam(key, value) {
        if (history.pushState) {
            let searchParams = new URLSearchParams(window.location.search);
            searchParams.set(key, value);
            let newurl = window.location.protocol + "//" + window.location.host + window.location.pathname + '?' + searchParams.toString();
            window.history.pushState({path: newurl}, '', newurl);
        }
    }

// to remove the specific key
export function removeUrlParameter(paramKey) {
  const url = window.location.href
  console.log("url", url)
  var r = new URL(url)
  r.searchParams.delete(paramKey)
  const newUrl = r.href
  console.log("r.href", newUrl)
  window.history.pushState({ path: newUrl }, '', newUrl)
}

Old question, modern answer to help future devs; using the URL interface:

const url = new URL(window.location);
url.searchParams.set('key', value);
window.history.pushState(null, '', url.toString());

This makes sure you really only change the desired query-parameter.

Building off of Fabio's answer, I created two functions that will probably be useful for anyone stumbling upon this question. With these two functions, you can call insertParam() with a key and value as an argument. It will either add the URL parameter or, if a query param already exists with the same key, it will change that parameter to the new value:

//function to remove query params from a URL
function removeURLParameter(url, parameter) {
    //better to use l.search if you have a location/link object
    var urlparts= url.split('?');   
    if (urlparts.length>=2) {

        var prefix= encodeURIComponent(parameter)+'=';
        var pars= urlparts[1].split(/[&;]/g);

        //reverse iteration as may be destructive
        for (var i= pars.length; i-- > 0;) {    
            //idiom for string.startsWith
            if (pars[i].lastIndexOf(prefix, 0) !== -1) {  
                pars.splice(i, 1);
            }
        }

        url= urlparts[0] + (pars.length > 0 ? '?' + pars.join('&') : "");
        return url;
    } else {
        return url;
    }
}

//function to add/update query params
function insertParam(key, value) {
    if (history.pushState) {
        // var newurl = window.location.protocol + "//" + window.location.host + search.pathname + '?myNewUrlQuery=1';
        var currentUrlWithOutHash = window.location.origin + window.location.pathname + window.location.search;
        var hash = window.location.hash
        //remove any param for the same key
        var currentUrlWithOutHash = removeURLParameter(currentUrlWithOutHash, key);

        //figure out if we need to add the param with a ? or a &
        var queryStart;
        if(currentUrlWithOutHash.indexOf('?') !== -1){
            queryStart = '&';
        } else {
            queryStart = '?';
        }

        var newurl = currentUrlWithOutHash + queryStart + key + '=' + value + hash
        window.history.pushState({path:newurl},'',newurl);
    }
}

I've used the following JavaScript library with great success:

https://github.com/balupton/jquery-history

It supports the HTML5 history API as well as a fallback method (using #) for older browsers.

This library is essentially a polyfill around `history.pushState'.

Since everyone answering this seems to forget the hash, I want to add the code I'm using to keep all URL parameters:

const urlParams = new URLSearchParams(window.location.search);

/// Change some part of the URL params

if (history.pushState) {
  const newurl =
    window.location.protocol +
    "//" +
    window.location.host +
    window.location.pathname +
    "?" +
    urlParams.toString() +
    window.location.hash;
  window.history.replaceState({ path: newurl }, "", newurl);
} else {
  window.location.search = urlParams.toString();
}

If we simply want to update the query parameter without touching other parts of URL, there is no need to build the URL again. This is what I use:

const addQueryParam = (key, value) => {
  const url = new URL(window.location.href);
  url.searchParams.set(key, value);
  window.history.pushState({}, '', url.toString());
};

const getQueryParam = (key) => {
  const url = new URL(window.location.href);
  return url.searchParams.get(key) || '';
};

Then the history API is exactly what you are looking for. If you wish to support legacy browsers as well, then look for a library that falls back on manipulating the URL's hash tag if the browser doesn't provide the history API.

I thought I'd add a bit to Fabio and Aram's answers. I thought I might sometimes like to preserve the hash in the url. But usually not, so I set that parameter to default to false.

replaceState still does not set the page title on Chrome. So I added a couple lines to change the title, if one is provided.

function insertUrlParam(key, value, title = '', preserve_hash = false) {
    if (history.pushState) {
        let searchParams = new URLSearchParams(window.location.search);
        searchParams.set(key, value);
        let newurl = window.location.protocol + "//" + window.location.host + window.location.pathname
            + '?' + searchParams.toString();
        if(preserve_hash) newurl = newurl + window.location.hash;
        let oldTitle = document.title;
        if(title !== '') {
            window.history.replaceState({path: newurl}, title, newurl);
            if(document.title !== title) { // fallback if above doesn't work
                document.title = title;
            }
        } else { // in case browsers ever clear titles set with empty string
            window.history.replaceState({path: newurl}, oldTitle, newurl);
        }
    }
}