sometimes you gotta parse or serialize some url strings...

href.js

var util = (function(w,d,$,pub) {
  var state;

  state = {
    current: null,
    previous: []
  };

  // http schema/protocol
  pub.getProtocol = function(str) {
    var re = /https?:\/\//;
    return str.match(re);
  };

  // strip off trailing slashes
  pub.stripTrailing = function(str) {
    if (str[str.length-1] == '/') str = str.substr(0, str.length-1);
    return str;
  };

  // get querystring params
  pub.parseParams = function(str) {
    var params = {}, queries, temp, i, l;
    var query = str;
    var queryString = query.substring(query.indexOf('?')+1);
    queries = queryString.split("&");
    for ( i = 0, l = queries.length; i < l; i++ ) {
      temp = queries[i].split('=');
      params[temp[0]] = decodeURIComponent(temp[1]);
    }
    return params;
  };

  // accepts an array of paths and joins
  // them back into a str
  pub.serializePaths = function(arr) {
    return '/' + arr.join('/');
  };

  // serializes param obj, only works single
  // level
  pub.serializeParams = function(obj) {
    var param = null;
    for (var k in obj) {
      if (!param) param = [];
      param.push(k + '=' + obj[k]);
    }
    return '?' + param.join('&');
  };

  pub.parseHref = function(str) {

    // check for existing state objects and
    // push them into previous array
    if (typeof state.current == 'object') {
      state.previous.push(state.current);
    }

    var pieces, paramIndex, protocol, url;

    // base url obj values
    url = {
      $base: null,
      host: null,
      params: null,
      path: null,
      protocol: null
    };

    if (typeof str == 'undefined') return url;

    // reset/set current obj
    url.$base = str;

    // match/strip protocol
    protocol = pub.getProtocol(str);
    if (protocol) {
      url.protocol = protocol[0];
      str = str.replace(protocol[0], '');
    }

    // process params
    paramIndex = str.indexOf('?');
    if (paramIndex != -1) {
      url.params = pub.parseParams(str);
      str = str.substr(0, paramIndex);
    }

    // strip any trailing slashes
    str = pub.stripTrailing(str);

    // break pieces into array
    pieces = str.split('/');
    if (pieces.length) {
      url.host = pieces[0];
      if (pieces.length > 1) {
        url.path = pieces.splice(1, pieces.length-1);
      }
    }

    pub.current = state.current = url;

    return url;

  };

  return pub;

})(window,document,jQuery, util || {});