Get query string in Google CSE v2 - ajax

Question

I am using Google CSE v2, and I need to get the query that the user entered. The problem is that it is ajax, and the query is not in the url.
Does anyone know a solution?
Thanks

Answer 1

First off, when you create the search box, you need to give it a 'gname' attribute so you can identify it in your javascript, like so:
<gcse:searchbox gname="storesearch"></gcse:searchbox>
<gcse:searchresults gname="storesearch"></gcse:searchresults>
Or, if you're using the html5 style tags (which you should unless you have a reason not to):
<div class="gcse-searchbox" data-gname="storesearch"></div>
<div class="gcse-searchresults" data-gname="storesearch"></div>
(Replace 'storesearch' with whatever name you want to use to identify this custom search.)
More info on that here: https://developers.google.com/custom-search/docs/element#supported_attributes
Then, you can access the custom search element and get the current query like so:
var cseElement = google.search.cse.element.getElement('storesearch'),
query = cseElement.getInputQuery();
or if you don't need the reference to the element anymore, obviously that could be combined into one line:
var query = google.search.cse.element.getElement('storesearch').getInputQuery();
The docs for that part are here: https://developers.google.com/custom-search/docs/element#cse-element

Answer 2

I know this is already answered correctly. But for those also looking for a simple JS function to achieve this, here you go. Pass it the name of the variable you want to extract from the query string.
var qs = (function(a) {
if (a == "") return {};
var b = {};
for (var i = 0; i < a.length; ++i) {
var p=a[i].split('=');
if (p.length != 2) continue;
b[p[0]] = decodeURIComponent(p[1].replace(/\+/g, " "));
}
return b;
})(window.location.search.substr(1).split('&'));