Can you use hash navigation without affecting history?

Question

I'm afraid it might be impossible but is there a way to change the hash value of a URL without leaving an entry in the browser's history and without reloading? Or do the equivalent?

As far as specifics go, I was developing some basic hash navigation along the lines of:

//hash nav -- works with js-tabs
var getHash = window.location.hash;
var hashPref = "tab-";
function useHash(newHash) {
    //set js-tab according to hash
    newHash = newHash.replace('#'+hashPref, '');
    $("#tabs li a[href='"+ newHash +"']").click();
}
function setHash(newHash) {
    //set hash according to js-tab
    window.location.hash = hashPref + newHash;

    //THIS IS WHERE I would like to REPLACE the location.hash
    //without a history entry

}
    // ... a lot of irrelavent tabs js and then....

    //make tabs work
    $("#tabs.js-tabs a").live("click", function() {
        var showMe = $(this).attr("href");
        $(showMe).show();
        setHash(showMe);
        return false;
    });
    //hash nav on ready .. if hash exists, execute
    if ( getHash ){
        useHash(getHash);
    }

Using jQuery, obviously. The idea is that in this specific instance 1) making the user go back over every tab change could effectively 'break the back button' by piling up needless references, and 2) not retaining which tab they're currently on if they hit refresh is an annoyance.

Answer 1

location.replace("#hash_value_here"); 

The above seems to do what you're after.