Professional JavaScript For Web Developers

Chapter 5
The method assign() accomplishes the same thing:
location.assign(“http://www.wrox.com”);
Either way is fine, but most developers use location.href because it more accurately represents the
intent of the code.
If you don’t want the page containing the script to be accessible in the browser history, you can use the
replace() method. This method does the same thing as assign(), but it takes the extra step of removing
the page containing the script from history, making it inaccessible using the browser Back and
Forward buttons. Try it for yourself:
You won’t be able to get back here
Enjoy this page for a second, because you won’t be coming back here.
setTimeout(function () {
location.replace(“http://www.wrox.com/”);
}, 1000);
Load this page in your browser, wait for it to navigate to the new page, and then try hitting the Back
button.
The location object also has a method called reload() that reloads the current page. The two modes for
reload() reload from the browser cache or reload from the server. Which of these two modes is used
depends on the value of one argument: false to load from cache; true to load from the server (if the
argument is omitted, it is considered false).
So, to reload from the server, you use this code:
location.reload(true);
To reload from the cache, you can use either of these lines:
location.reload(false);
location.reload();
Any code located after a reload() call may or may not be executed, depending on
factors such as network latency and system resources. For this reason, it is best to
have reload() as the last line of code.
The final method of the location object is toString(), which simply returns the value of
location.href. Therefore, the following two lines of code are equal:
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