I know that this question has been asked before, but I have had trouble with all of the solutions posted so far. I have a url that looks like this:

http://localhost:3000/virgil/1/render_lesson?toggle=view

It is a Rails call through AJAX, but that should not matter. Everytime I try a function that is supposed to get the variable for "toggle" I get "undefined" instead when I print it to the consoles log. I have tried this function

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 when I call console.log(getUrlVars()); I get ["http://localhost:3000/"]

But when I call console.log(getUrlVars()["toggle"]); I simply get undefined

I appreciate any help!

EDIT:

Adding the relevant parts of my code. This is a Rails application, that makes the call using AJAX.

<%= link_to 'View Lessons', render_lesson_virgil_path(course, :toggle => :view), :remote => true, :class => 'toggle_lesson', :id => "toggle_lesson#{course.id}" %>

And then in the javascript file that it calls:

function $_GET( name ){
  name = name.replace(/[\[]/,"\\\[").replace(/[\]]/,"\\\]");
  var regexS = "[\\?&]"+name+"=([^&#]*)";
  var regex = new RegExp( regexS );
  var results = regex.exec( window.location.href );
  if( results == null )
    return "";
  else
    return results[1];
}

console.log($_GET('toggle')); //This is where it prints the incorrect value to the log, regardless of the function I use.

$("#Course<%= @course.id %>").append('<div id="Lesson<%= @course.id %>" class="render_lesson"></div>');
$("#Lesson<%= @course.id %>").html("<%= escape_javascript(render( :partial => "lesson" )).html_safe  %>");

• javascript
• jquery

This is the JS function I use for query strings - hopefully it helps you.

function getParameterByName(name) {
var match = RegExp('[?&]' + name + '=([^&]*)').exec(window.location.search);
return match && decodeURIComponent(match[1].replace(/\+/g, ' '));
}

Try this (i only changed line 4 - "var hashes ..."):

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

I am using it in my 1 of Projects..

function $_GET( name ){
  name = name.replace(/[\[]/,"\\\[").replace(/[\]]/,"\\\]");
  var regexS = "[\\?&]"+name+"=([^&#]*)";
  var regex = new RegExp( regexS );
  var results = regex.exec( window.location.href );
  if( results == null )
    return "";
  else
    return results[1];
}

looks like PHP $_GET['']... because i love PHP :D

Usage Example:

URL: index.php?page=newone&id=4&cat=15

Javascript: alert($_GET('page')); // newone