How to pass string with no quotes as a parameter in function?

If my api takes the query as http://localhost:8000/api/v1/rental/?place__startswith=kathmandu then how can i do generic search in reactjs. What i tried is i passed the default parameter as search(query=kathmandu) so that the result of place named kathmandu will be listed by default and when user types place name that they want to search then it should display those places instead of kathmndu. But i am getting an error saying Uncaught ReferenceError: kathmandu is not defined. How can i resolve this problem?

componentWillMount(){
        this.search();
      }

search(query=kathmandu){
    let url = 'http://localhost:8000/api/v1/rental/?place__startswith=query';
    Request.get(url).then((response) => {
        console.log('response',response.body.objects);
        this.setState({
            place:response.body.objects
        });
    });
  }

  searchUpdated(term){
    console.log('term is',term);
    this.search(term);
  }

  render() {
        var margin = { marginTop : '13em' }; 
        let location = _.map(this.state.place, (place) => {
            return(
                    <div className="searchResult">
                        <li>{place.place}</li>
                        <li>{place.city}</li>
                    </div>
                )
        });
        return(
            <div className = "container">
                <div className="content text-align-center">
                    <div className="row text-xs-center">
                        <div className="middle-text"  style={margin}>
                            <h1 className="welcome"><span>Welcome </span></h1>
                            <button ref="test" className="btn how-it-works" onClick={this.handleClick}>Search Space</button>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <div id="mySearch" className="overlay"  onKeyDown={this.handleKeyDown}>
                  <button className="btn closebtn" onClick={this.handleClick}>x</button>
                  <div className="overlay-content">
                        <SearchInput ref="searchInput" className="search-input" onChange={this.searchUpdated} />
                        <ul>{location}</ul>
                  </div>
            </div>
            </div>
            );
    }
}

Solution

I think what you're looking for is encodeURIComponent.

search( query='kathmandu' ){

And:

let url = 'http://localhost:8000/api/v1/rental/?place__startswith=' + encodeURIComponent(query);

NB as your query string actually does only contains letter, you don't need encodeURIComponent for that example, but you might need it in other cases.