GET query through javascript with page reload, url rewriting problem

Question

I use url rewriting on one of my projects, and I would like to be able to perform queries through a search box with javascript by, on a "type enter" event, grabbing the value of this search box and passing it through a GET request to another search page. The end result would be a search address a la twitter (ie mysite.com/search/mykeyword). My code is the following:

$("#search-box").keyup(function(event) {    
    var code = (event.keyCode ? event.keyCode : event.which);
    if (code == "13") { // ENTER
        var q = $(this).val();
        document.location.href = "/search/"+q;
    }
});

2 questions:

1. how can I sanitize the q string with JS to avoid having a non url encoded string with spaces or special characters? (of course it doesn't work if i type any of these values). I tried the function escape but it still doesn't work.
2. is it a good idea to perform a GET query this way?

Thanks

Answer 1

1. Don't use escape. Use encodeURIComponent.

   var q = encodeURIComponent($(this).val());

2. Perfectly fine... although I wouldn't use URL rewriting on the parameters to a search.