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QueryString function......what does it do?

I've become the editor of a website that i didn't create. There is a map feature on one of the webpages and i've been asked to alter how the map initially loads on the webpage.
I don't know if the javascript that i'm looking at is original or whether it's some stock code provided by someone like Google. Anyhow, some of the code that i'm looking at looks like this....
var gridChoice = "";
if (osbounds) gridChoice = osbounds.gridStyle;
var gridUse = QueryString("g");
if (gridUse) gridChoice = gridUse;
switch (gridChoice)
....
....
....
In the comments, it states that using g in the QueryString should override what ever the code does.
It selects the type of grid displayed on the map. There is another selection that is identical to this that selects the type of map shown (Eg. Google road, Terrain, Hybrid, etc). The code used to select the type of map uses m in the QueryString. With the same comment - that m should override.
I have no idea how QueryString works or or what it does. I've tried to Google it but i can only find people asking for advice on places like this. I can't seem to find any documentation that describes the function, and how it works. I know there will be something out there but my Google-foo is weak on this one.
May someone describe to me what it does? Or link a source that exlains it well please?
Thanks.

It uses location.search (w3schools.com/jsref/prop_loc_search.asp) So it turns out that querystring is the name for the part of the URL that represents the parameters of a webpage. In this application, the parameters would be...GPS coordinates, type of map, type of grid, etc. The input in to the function QueryString selects the parameter to be looked at. It then parses the URL for that parameter and then returns the appropriate response.

Get value of variable that stores a a function

I know this is a SharePoint question, but I feel more like it is a javascript question also. I'm using this great tool to fill some of the fields in my SharePoint list (web part). It works great when I do this one by one, but I'm trying to request multiple column values, but I can't get it to work.
var thisUsersValues = $().SPServices.SPGetCurrentUser({
fieldNames: ["ID", "Name", "SIP Address"],
debug: false
});
How can I get specific column value (e.g. "Name") from this array?
Thanks!

Looking at the source it appears that the SPServices.SPGetCurrentUser() function returns an associative array with the keys being the fieldNames that were passed to it.
This means to access the field you can use
thisUserValues.Name
Or
thisUserValues['Name']
Disclaimer: I have no experience with sharepoint or this particular jQuery library.

Pass form field values to parameters of a portlet:renderURL tag in WebSphere Portal 6.1

I'm developing a portlet for WebSphere Portal 6.1, with JSP/JSTL, pure javascript, no AJAX frameworks, with a JSP that shows a send feedback form and, when submitted, redirects to another JSP to show the user the success of the operation.
I use javascript to get the values of the form fields by using document.getElementById() function. For example:
var valorAsunto = document.getElementById("asunto").value;
where "asunto" is the ID of a text field in my form. Also my form has the following structure:
<form name="formularioCorreo" id="formularioCorreo" method="post" action="<portlet:renderURL><portlet:param name="nextTask" value="sendFeedback"/></portlet:renderURL>">
That works OK, but I'm having trouble when trying to build the <portlet:renderURL> tag from that javascript values: when I try to concatenate a string for the renderURL and then reassign to form action like this:
var valorAction = '<portlet:renderURL><portlet:param name="nextTask" value="sendFeedback"/><portlet:param name="asunto" value="'+valorAsunto+'"/></portlet:renderURL>';
document.formularioCorreo.action = valorAction;
document.formularioCorreo.submit();
The resulting string, when application is deployed, has the structure:
/wps/myportal/<portletpath>/!ut/p/c5/<a very long random sequence of
numbers and letters>/
So one can't figure out where the parameter values are, but if I print the assigned values it shows something like:
asunto: '+valorAsunto+'
instead of
asunto: this is a sample subject
I've been trying to use some other ways to concatenate the string; for instance with a StringBuffer, as shown on http://www.java2s.com/Tutorial/JavaScript/0120__String/StringBufferbasedonarray.htm
and also javascript functions like encodeURI()/decodeURI(), replace(), etc. but I just can't get either the URL with the right parameter values or the URL encoded in the structure shown above (the one with the long sequence of chars).
Sometimes I manage to get the right parameter values, by manually replacing in the valorAction assignation all the "<" for "<" and all the ">" for ">" before the concatenation, and then doing the following:
var valorAction = valorAction.replace(/</g,"<").replace(/>/g,">");
Then I get the following string:
<portlet:renderURL><portlet:param name="nextTask" value="sendFeedback"/><portlet:param name="asunto" value="this is a sample subject"/></portlet:renderURL>
which is OK, but when it has to redirect to the results page it shows an error like this
Error 404: EJPEI0088E: The resource <portlet:renderURL><portlet:param
name="nextTask" value="sendFeedback"/><portlet:param name="asunto"
value="this is a sample subject"/></portlet:renderURL> could not be
found.
Does someone know how to transform that string to the right format to be rendered?
Does someone know any other way to "inject" that parameter values to the renderURL?
I'd like to know also if it is possible to pass that parameter values from javascript to JSP so I could put that values in a HashMap of parameters to use with the PortletURLHelper.generateSinglePortletRenderURL() method, in case the former is not possible.
Thank you.
Update 1:
In my doView() I use the following, in order to make the redirection:
String targetJsp = "/_Feedback/jsp/html/FeedbackPortletView.jsp";
String nextTask = request.getParameter("nextTask");
//(... I have omitted code to conditionally select targetJsp value, according to nextTask value ...)
PortletRequestDispatcher rd = getPortletContext().getRequestDispatcher(targetJsp);
rd.include(request, response);
This is just a new JSP inside my portlet, not a different portal page. I do use request.getParameter() to get the values for my form fields from my doview():
String subjectFeedback = request.getParameter("asunto");
String bodyFeedback = request.getParameter("mensaje");
String emailFeedback = request.getParameter("emailFeedback");
I don't see the need to include hidden fields if my form has the fields named above. In fact, what I'm trying to do is to pass the values the user entered in these fields as request parameters, but the values I get by this means are the following:
subjectFeedback: "'+valorAsunto+'"
bodyFeedback: "'+valorMensaje+'"
emailFeedback: "'+valorEmailFeedback+'"
I get the above values when using concatenation by "+"; when I use StringBuffer I get the following values:
subjectFeedback: "'); buffer.append(valorAsunto); buffer.append('"
bodyFeedback: "'); buffer.append(valorMensaje); buffer.append('"
emailFeedback: "'); buffer.append(valorEmailFeedback); buffer.append('"

Does someone know any other way to "inject" that parameter values to the renderURL?
There are two IBM guides on that topic.
Portal 6.1 and 7.0 Advanced URL Generation Helper classes
How to create a link to a portlet (Standard API) that passes parameters to that portlet

How are you redirecting to the other page? Is it a different portal page or just a new JSP page inside your portlet?
You don't need to inject any parameters to the render URL. Have a form whose action targets to a renderURL. Now to pass information to your portlet's doView() method, you can have hidden fields in the form ,then populate them using JavaScript and then submit the form. In the doView() method, you can use request.getParameter() to get the parameters.

Well, sometimes the most obvious things happen to be the way to the solutions.
I was too busy trying to find elaborated causes for that situation that I did not checked for this at all:
My form fields were correctly identified by different id, but they weren't set their name properties.
With the help of a work partner we could figure out that, so assigning the same value of id for name on each form field did the trick.
So, I ended up skipping that reassigning action thing, because the field values are being set as request parameters, as it should be.
Thanks for the help.

Ruby & Rails - Convert String to Proc

I'm in the following situation. The current url looks like the following:
/categories/Art
And I'm using name = location.pathname.split('/')[2] in order to grab the Art portion of the URL. Then, I send an AJAX the following path back to the controller: http://localhost:3000/sort?sortMethod=name&category=name or date, whichever link is clicked on.
Now in my controller I can use sort = params[:category] to get the string name, yet what I'd like to do with this string is sort an array by it. #categories is an array of objects and I'd like to call .sort_by(&:sort) yet it doesn't recognize the string value of sort = name. So now I'd like to convert this string into a proc in order to sort the array. Anyone know how I accomplish this?
Any help is greatly appreciated!

Convert it to a symbol first and then use Symbol#to_proc:
#categories.sort_by(&sort.to_sym)
However be sure that the users can't call anything malicious on your objects like:
http://localhost:3000/sort?sortMethod=destroy
One way of protecting yourself is to use attribute_accessible definitions in your model and then do
#categories.sort_by(&sort.to_sym) if Category.accessible_attributes.include? sort.to_sym

The problem is not entirely clear, so you may need to adjust the following solution. However, the basic idea is taht it's possible to do something like:
Category.all.sort_by {|category| category.method(params[:category]).call }

Also, the "Art" portion of your url is available in Rails' params hash as params[:action], so you don't have to do location.pathname.split('/')[2].

passing a javascript array to a django view

I'm using django and have a page of search results that I want to be able to filter by category with ajax (jquery) requests. There's a filter bar on the side of the page and when someone selects certain categories and clicks submit, those corresponding results should show up on the page. My code looks something like this:
<input type="checkbox" name="category1" value="1" />
<input type="checkbox" name="category2" value="2" />
<input type="button" name="submit" onclick="{
var cats = new Array();
$(input[type=checkbox]:checked).each(function() {
cats.push($(this).val());
});
$.getJSON('page.html', {'cats':cats}, function(data) {...});
}" />
But in the django view when I try to read the cats array it returns a 500 error. I can, however, pass scalars and strings to the django view with no problem.
Any thoughts? Is there a more elegant jQuery way to do this without using a javascript array?

Rather than getting the field values manually, you can use jQuery's serializeArray() method, which turns a set of fields into an array which can be sent as JSON. Note that you'll probably want both checkboxes to have the same name, so that when it's serialised it becomes something that Django will interpret as a list.
As Steve says, to help further we'll need to know what the view is doing and what the error is.

Got it working - I downloaded the jquery-json plugin, encoded my array as a json obect to send to django, and then used simplesjon.loads() in the django view to convert that json object to a python list. However, the fact that it took so many steps and jQuery on its own doesn't even come with json encode functionality still makes me think there must be a more elegant way - if anyone has any insight, I'd love to hear it.
Thanks Daniel for pointing me in the right direction.

I guess that a workaround would be transforming your array into a string, eg in javascript:
a = new Array(0,1,2,3,4);
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
a.join(" ")
"0 1 2 3 4"
Then you can pass this to the python back end, split it and reconstruct the data structure you need.....