Modify the URL without reloading the page

2018-06-03 13:54:06

Is there any way I can modify the URL of the current page without reloading the page?

I would like to access the portion before the # hash if possible.

I only need to change the portion after the domain, so its not like I'm violating cross-domain policies.

 window.location.href = "www.mysite.com/page2.php";  // sadly this reloads

This can now be done in Chrome, Safari, FF4+, and IE10pp4+!

See this question's answer for more info: Updating address bar with new URL without hash or reloading the page

Example:

 function processAjaxData(response, urlPath){
     document.getElementById("content").innerHTML = response.html;
     document.title = response.pageTitle;
     window.history.pushState({"html":response.html,"pageTitle":response.pageTitle},"", urlPath);
 }

You can then use window.onpopstate to detect the back/forward button navigation:

window.onpopstate = function(e){
    if(e.state){
        document.getElementById("content").innerHTML = e.state.html;
        document.title = e.state.pageTitle;
    }
};

For a more in-depth look at manipulating browser history see this MDN article.

HTML5 introduced the history.pushState() and history.replaceState() methods, which allow you to add and modify history entries, respectively.

window.history.pushState('page2', 'Title', '/page2.php');