javascript - jquery get querystring from URL

I have the following URL:

http://www.mysite.co.uk/?location=mylocation1

What I need is to get the value of location from the URL into a variable and then use it in a jQuery code:

var thequerystring = "getthequerystringhere"

$('html,body').animate({scrollTop: $("div#" + thequerystring).offset().top}, 500);

Does anyone know how to grab that value using JavaScript or jQuery?

Answer

From: http://jquery-howto.blogspot.com/2009/09/get-url-parameters-values-with-jquery.html

This is what you need :)

The following code will return a JavaScript Object containing the URL parameters:

// Read a page's GET URL variables and return them as an associative array.
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;
}

For example, if you have the URL:

http://www.example.com/?me=myValue&name2=SomeOtherValue

This code will return:

{
    "me"    : "myValue",
    "name2" : "SomeOtherValue"

}

and you can do:

var me = getUrlVars()["me"];
var name2 = getUrlVars()["name2"];