I have a setTimeout that records the URL in a variable called newURL.

function checkURL() {
    var newURL = window.location;
} setInterval(checkURL, 1000);

What I would like to happen, is that a certain function must be executed, when the URL changes. Could someone help me here please?

I have a setTimeout that records the URL in a variable called newURL.

function checkURL() {
    var newURL = window.location;
} setInterval(checkURL, 1000);

What I would like to happen, is that a certain function must be executed, when the URL changes. Could someone help me here please?

• javascript
• dom-events
• settimeout

• 1 Whouldn't the url change be caused by page reloading? – WojtekT Commented Jun 11, 2012 at 13:48
• Assuming the only fragment identifier is changed or the URL is changed through the history API, all you have to do is pare the current value against the previous one. I don't see the difficulty here. But if changing the URL causes a reload of the page, it does not matter what you do, since your script will terminate. – Felix Kling Commented Jun 11, 2012 at 13:48
• @WojtekT: The URL can be changed by a number of ways. – Felix Kling Commented Jun 11, 2012 at 13:51
• Felix Kling is right. The page is using the History API. Sindri's answer helped. Thanks! – Jacques Blom Commented Jun 11, 2012 at 13:54

3 Answers 3

Not sure why the page wouldn't reload before you could catch the change in the url. You can also take a look a window.onunload

var checkURL = (function () {
    var oldURL = location.href;
    return function (fn) {
        var newURL = location.href;
        if (fn && oldURL !== newURL) {
            fn(oldURL, newURL);
        }
        oldURL = newURL;
    };
}());

From what i understand, when the url changes will be a new execution of the JS scripts in that page. The " window.location" will return the current URL, but JavaScript not record /register data in script, or variablle from a page to another.

Use a global variable to store old url. Than you can check if the url was changed and execute some function.