How can I turn a string into a Location object? [duplicate]

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Creating a new Location object in javascript

If the user inputs a string that is a URL, what's the easiest way to turn it into 开发者_开发技巧a Location object (like window.location) so I can use methods and properties like obj.hostname?

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Don't know if you can create a Location object, but this article explains how to use an anchor tag for the same effect:

http://james.padolsey.com/javascript/parsing-urls-with-the-dom/