Fetching URL Parameters in a Lightning Component?

Question:

I am working with Communities in Salesforce Lightning and trying to fetch URL parameters directly into the attributes of a Lightning component without using JavaScript. For example, given the URL:

https://www.someurl.com/page?name=somename&surname=somesurname

I want to bind the name and surname parameters directly to attributes in my Lightning component so that I can display them as follows:

<aura:component>
    <!-- Parameters Available in URL -->
    <aura:attribute name="name" type="String" />
    <aura:attribute name="surname" type="String" />

    <!-- Display the fetched parameters -->
    Name is : {!v.name}
    SurName is : {!v.surname}
</aura:component>

How can I achieve this without involving JavaScript? If JavaScript is necessary, what would be an effective approach?

Answer:

Unfortunately, the {! urlParamName} syntax is not supported natively in Lightning components. To fetch URL parameters, you must use JavaScript to parse the parameters and assign them to the component attributes.

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Here’s how you can achieve this using JavaScript:

With JavaScript Controller:

You can use the following helper method to retrieve the URL parameters and set them to the component attributes:

({
    doInit: function(component, event, helper) {
        var name = helper.getUrlParameter('name');
        var surname = helper.getUrlParameter('surname');

        // Set these parameters to component attributes
        component.set("v.name", name);
        component.set("v.surname", surname);
    }
})

Helper Method:

The helper method to parse URL parameters:

getUrlParameter: function(sParam) {
    var sPageURL = decodeURIComponent(window.location.search.substring(1)),
        sURLVariables = sPageURL.split('&'),
        sParameterName;

    for (var i = 0; i < sURLVariables.length; i++) {
        sParameterName = sURLVariables[i].split('=');
        if (sParameterName[0] === sParam) {
            return sParameterName[1] === undefined ? true : sParameterName[1];
        }
    }
    return null;
}

Component Markup:

Here’s how your Lightning component would look:

<aura:component implements="forceCommunity:availableForAllPageTypes" controller="YourApexController" >
    <aura:attribute name="name" type="String" />
    <aura:attribute name="surname" type="String" />

    <!-- Display URL parameters -->
    <p>Name is: {!v.name}</p>
    <p>SurName is: {!v.surname}</p>

    <!-- Initialize the values -->
    <aura:handler name="init" value="{!this}" action="{!c.doInit}" />
</aura:component>

Explanation:

1. getUrlParameter parses the URL’s query string and retrieves the value of a specific parameter.
2. The doInit method, triggered during initialization, calls the helper method to retrieve the name and surname parameters and sets them to the attributes.

This approach ensures that URL parameters are fetched dynamically during runtime and displayed in your Lightning component.

If you want a purely declarative method without JavaScript, you would need to use a Flow with input variables and embed the component in a Flow screen, but this limits flexibility compared to the JavaScript solution.

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