Is there a way to do it?
If the current url is say..
/table?sort=activity and I wanted to update it right away, I'd do
$location.url(null, {sort: 'something'})
but what if I wanted to get back the updated url /table?sort=something without updating it?
All the $location functions seems to change the url right away when used with parameters..
For completeness thought I'd share this SO question. The question and answers are old but there's a good chance the answer still applies.