Way to read current URL?

so I'm interested in knowing if there's a way through javascript, php whatever to be able to read the pages current URL. For example when the page loads and knows the difference between www.mySite.com/ and www.mySite.com/#about

I'm trying to find if there's a way to use the '#about' as a variable for a particular script instead of just it being dummy text on the end of the URL.

You can use the document.URL property to read the entire url. Then you can use whatever string or regular-expression routines are appropriate to extract the part you want.

Here is a basic example of reading two variables out of the URL.

http://webinterfacetricks.com/urltes...llo&two=banana

There are lots of comments in the source code to explain each step but please let me know if anything is unclear.

Just what I was looking for, thanks.

Code:

---

function getURLandNVP() {
    var thisURL = document.URL;
    var arrayURL = new Array();
        arrayURL = thisURL.split("/");
    var arrayLen = arrayURL.length;
    var thisDelim = "/";
    var thisPath = "";
    var thisNVP = "";
    var qs = false;
    var nvp, thisPart, pre, sp;
    for(i=3; i<arrayLen; i++) {
        thisPart = arrayURL[i];
        thisPartLen = thisPart.length;
        nvp = thisPart.indexOf("?");
        sp = thisPart.indexOf(".");
        if((nvp == -1) && (!qs)) { // If NO URL parameters, add to path
            thisPath += thisDelim + thisPart;
            }
        else if((nvp > -1) && (!qs)) { // If URL parameters, get path and separate from URL parameters
            pre = thisPart.substring(0,nvp);
            thisPath += thisDelim + pre;
            thisNVP = thisPart.substring(nvp+1,thisPartLen);
            thisNVP = thisNVP.replace("&","\n","all");
            }
        else if((sp > -1) && (!qs)) { // If using slash delimiter after document name
            qs = true;
            thisPath += thisDelim + thisPart;
            }
        else if(qs) {
            thisNVP += "\n" + thisPart;
            }
        }
    var thisAlert = thisPath; if(thisNVP.length != 0) { thisAlert += "\nwith NVP of\n" + unescape(thisNVP); }
    alert(thisAlert);
    }

---