Relative URL containing just the querystring

Question

I have some links in a page which only need to change the querystring portion of the current URL.

E.g. the current page is:

http://demo.com/bigreport?page=13

and I want to link to

http://demo.com/bigreport?page=14

Can I use <a href="?page=14">Next</a> as a relative link for this?

I was surprised to find it works in Chrome. I've never seen it documented or mentioned anywhere, so I'm keen to know if anyone uses this, and if there is wider browser support.

Answer 1

Further research reveals that <a href="?page=14">Next</a> is a valid relative URL.

It's documented as part of WHATWG's URL spec http://url.spec.whatwg.org/#relative-state

The new URL will inherit the base URL's scheme, host, port and path.

Tested to work on:

• Chrome
• IE 7

Answer 2

<a href="?page14">Next</a> works because browsers interpret that as a relative URL. Similar to how linking images on your site might work <img src="logo.gif"/> Relative urls work this way (link is relative to the current page), you don't need to use the full absolute URL.

Browsers have been supporting this for long long time. People might not be aware of it because browser automatically handles it.