How to run a script on a page accessed using href

[kresimirt]

Hi,
I am trying to enhance the functionality of my web site which is hard with my limited knowledge of web developing.
The idea is the following:
On the main web page there is a show_hide script that looks like this:

<script> function show_hide(the_layer)
{
if(document.getElementById(the_layer))
{
if(document.getElementById(the_layer).style.display == 'none')
{
document.getElementById(the_layer).style.display = 'inline';
}
else
{
document.getElementById(the_layer).style.display = 'none';
}
}
}

On the page there are a number of statements like:

<a href="javascript:show_hide('sectionx');">Sectionx</a>

which open particular section in the text.

On another page I have links to the main page:

<a href="mainpage.htm">Main page</a>

which open the main page but the visitor has to locate the section of interest by himself and click on it to open it.
I would like to have direct links to sections, but I do not know how to open the main page and run the show_hide scipt in a sigle href statement. Something like:

<a href="mainpage.htm ????javascript:show_hide('section4');">Main page - Section4</a>

Is it possible to accomplish this?

Thanks in advance
KT

[gits]

when you open a new page the page itself should include the script and call the method in its onload-handler ... unless the new page is opened in an iframe or similar item on a base-page ...

kind regards

[kresimirt]

I modified both pages.
On the page that links to the mainpage I modified the href statement:
<a href="mainpage. htm?section4">M ain page - Section 4</a>
with the idea to pass the string 'section4' to the mainpage.
The onload function of the main page has to receive the information that I want to open section 4. Therefore, on the mainpage in the body tag I added the onload part in the form:
onload="show_hi de_call()"
I also defined a function:

function show_hide_call()
{
variable=???????????
javascript:show_hide(variable);
}

The question is: what to put in the place of questionmarks?

Sorry for the trouble, but, basically, I have zero knowledge of javascript and passing values using href statement. I googled the web, found some probably usefull source codes but was unable to understand and use them.
Thanks

[gits]

in this case you might use the location reference of the window:

function show_hide_call() {
    var myVar = location.search;
    show_hide(myVar);
}

you might improve that by 'regExing' the params out like:

var myVar = location.search.match(/[^?]+$/)[0];

and to make it more robust ... it could look like:

function show_hide_call() {
    var action = location.search.match(/[^?]+$/);
    var myVar = action != null ? action[0] : 'aDefaultValue';
    show_hide(myVar);
}

kind regards

PS: you don't ever need the javascript: in href's or scripts.

[acoder]

Also look into using #, so that it can work without JavaScript. If JavaScript is enabled, use location.hash to retrieve the value.

[kresimirt]

Gits, thanks a lot.
I used the simplest method and it works fine. Although, I had to pull out a substring from myVar to eliminate the leading questionmark.

[gits]

that is equivalent to using the above shown regEx ... :) ... glad to hear you got it working :)

kind regards