A relative url value for href attribute

Question

Let's say currently I'm at www.example.com/category1/?page2, I want to put an anchor tag in the html which could redirect me to www.example.com/category1. I tried to use href='/' but it will take me to www.example.com instead of www.example.com/category1. I also tried to use href=" " but it just refresh the current page. So how should I specify the href attribute of the anchor tag?

`href="?"` would be functionally equal, if you don't mind a trailing `?`. — Wrikken, Mar 13 '13 at 00:28

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

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if you use a relative url, it's always relative to the top level, not whatever level you're at. So if you want to be at www.example.com/category1, use /category1

EDIT: misunderstood your question. If you want to just clear get params from your url, look at similar questions like How do I reload the page without the query parameters? (looks like using window.pathname is the cleanest solution)

edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

Community

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answered Mar 04 '13 at 21:36

Colleen

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This wouldn't work for the general case: `www.example.com/some/other/stuff/categoryN?foo` – Noyo Mar 04 '13 at 21:38
Thanks, man. But what I want to know is if there is some way that I don't need to hardcoded the relative url and it just goes to the url without everything after question mark? – chaonextdoor Mar 04 '13 at 21:43
@Noyo what are you talking about? Why not? – Colleen Mar 04 '13 at 21:48
As @chaonextdoor commented, (s)he(?) wants a general solution without having to hardcode the path part. My solution fixes this with a little javascript. – Noyo Mar 04 '13 at 21:50
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ah, yes, that is true. Except in that case, this question is a duplicate. – Colleen Mar 04 '13 at 21:51

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 04 '13 at 21:51

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One thing you should consider when writing relative URLs is the use of a base element. Base elements allow you to define the the context for a relative URL path.

Information about using the base element: Click Here

answered Mar 04 '13 at 21:51

theaccordance

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 04 '13 at 21:45

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You can use href="../category1/"

answered Mar 04 '13 at 21:45

MIIB

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Noyo · Answer 4 · 2013-03-04T22:21:36.887

As has been noted, if you know the pathname and want to hardcode it into the markup, you can just specify the relative path:

<a title="Go to Category 1" href="/category1">Category 1</a>

Otherwise, if you want a dynamic solution or don't want to hardcode the path, you can use javascript to get rid of the query parameters and make clicking the link do a redirect:

<a href="#" title="Return to main category page" onclick="window.location.href = window.location.pathname; return false;">Category N</a>

(For more information on window.location and its properties, see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/DOM/window.location#Properties .)

A relative url value for href attribute

4 Answers4