Web/API/HTMLHyperlinkElementUtils/search

The HTMLHyperlinkElementUtils.search property is a search string, also called a query string, that is USVString containing a '?' followed by the parameters of the URL.

Modern browsers provide URLSearchParams and URL.searchParams to make it easy to parse out the parameters from the querystring.

Syntax

string = object.search;
object.search = string;

Examples

// Let an <a id="myAnchor" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/HTMLHyperlinkElementUtils.search?q=123"> element be in the document
var anchor = document.getElementById("myAnchor");
var queryString = anchor.search; // Returns:'?q=123'

// Further parsing:
let params = new URLSearchParams(queryString);
let q = parseInt(params.get("q")); // is the number 123

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
HTML Living StandardThe definition of 'HTMLHyperlinkElementUtils.search' in that specification.	Living Standard	Initial definition.

Browser compatibility

Update compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet
`search`	Chrome Full support Yes Notes' Full support Yes Notes' Notes' Starting in Chrome 52, this property was moved to URL	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 22 Notes' Full support 22 Notes' Notes' From Firefox 22 to Firefox 44, this property was on the `URLUtils` mixin. It has been moved either on the `HTMLHyperlinkElementUtils` mixin, or directly on the interface. Notes'' Before Firefox 53, the `pathname` and `search` `HTMLHyperlinkElementUtils` properties returned the wrong parts of the URL. For example, for a URL of `http://z.com/x?a=true&b=false`, `pathname` would return `'/x?a=true&b=false'` and `search` would return , rather than `'/x'` and `'?a=true&b=false'` respectively. This has now been fixed.	IE Full support 5	Opera Full support Yes Notes' Full support Yes Notes' Notes' Starting in Opera 39, this property was moved to URL	Safari Full support Yes	WebView Android Full support Yes Notes' Full support Yes Notes' Notes' Starting in Chrome 52, this property was moved to URL	Chrome Android Full support Yes Notes' Full support Yes Notes' Notes' Starting in Chrome 52, this property was moved to URL	Firefox Android Full support 22 Notes' Full support 22 Notes' Notes' From Firefox 22 to Firefox 44, this property was on the `URLUtils` mixin. It has been moved either on the `HTMLHyperlinkElementUtils` mixin, or directly on the interface. Notes'' Before Firefox 53, the `pathname` and `search` `HTMLHyperlinkElementUtils` properties returned the wrong parts of the URL. For example, for a URL of `http://z.com/x?a=true&b=false`, `pathname` would return `'/x?a=true&b=false'` and `search` would return , rather than `'/x'` and `'?a=true&b=false'` respectively. This has now been fixed.	Opera Android Full support Yes Notes' Full support Yes Notes' Notes' Starting in Opera 39, this property was moved to URL	Safari iOS Full support Yes	Samsung Internet Android Full support Yes Notes' Full support Yes Notes' Notes' Starting in Samsung Internet 6.0, this property was moved to URL

Legend

Full support: Full support
See implementation notes.': See implementation notes.