files/en-us/web/api/htmlanchorelement/search/index.md
{{ApiRef("HTML DOM")}}
The search property of the {{domxref("HTMLAnchorElement")}} interface is a search string, also called a query string, that is a string containing a "?" followed by the parameters of the <a> element's href. If the URL does not have a search query, this property contains an empty string, "".
This property can be set to change the query string of the URL. When setting, a single "?" prefix is added to the provided value, if not already present. Setting it to "" removes the query string.
The query is {{Glossary("Percent-encoding", "percent-encoded")}} when setting but not percent-decoded when reading.
Modern browsers provide
URLSearchParams
and
URL.searchParams
to make it easy to parse out the parameters from the query string.
See {{domxref("URL.search")}} for more information.
A string.
// An <a id="myAnchor" href="/en-US/docs/HTMLAnchorElement?q=123"> element is in the document
const anchor = document.getElementById("myAnchor");
anchor.search; // returns '?q=123'
Alternatively, URLSearchParams can be used:
let params = new URLSearchParams(queryString);
let q = parseInt(params.get("q"), 10); // returns the number 123
{{Specifications}}
{{Compat}}