Working with URLs in JavaScript

URLs are an essential part of web applications, particularly when making API requests, and understanding how to construct and manipulate them is crucial for developers. Modern browsers support the URL API, which simplifies parsing and manipulating URLs by providing easy access to their various components such as protocol, host, pathname, query string, and hash. Prior to this, developers often relied on creating DOM elements or using regular expressions, both of which had limitations. The URL API allows for straightforward parsing by passing a URL string to the URL constructor, enabling developers to access properties like host and searchParams, and to build query strings safely using URLSearchParams, which avoids issues with string concatenation and encoding special characters. Additionally, the URL API can construct relative URLs and validate URL strings efficiently. For more advanced URL manipulation, the URLPattern API offers a way to match and extract parts of URLs using wildcards and named placeholders, making it useful for client-side routing in SPAs, although it is not yet supported by all browsers. Overall, these tools provide safer, more efficient alternatives to manual methods, enhancing developers' ability to create robust web applications.