In a browser

You can leverage the browser's URL parser using an <a> element:

var hostname = $('<a>').prop('href', url).prop('hostname');

or without jQuery:

var a = document.createElement('a');
a.href = url;
var hostname = a.hostname;

(This trick is particularly useful for resolving paths relative to the current page.)

Outside of a browser (and probably more efficiently):

Use the following function:

function get_hostname(url) {
    var m = url.match(/^http:\/\/[^/]+/);
    return m ? m[0] : null;
}

Use it like this:

get_hostname("http://example.com/path");

This will return http://example.com/ as in your example output.

Hostname of the current page

If you are only trying the get the hostname of the current page, use document.location.hostname.

This worked for me.

http://tech-blog.maddyzone.com/javascript/get-current-url-javascript-jquery

$(location).attr('host');                        www.test.com:8082
$(location).attr('hostname');                    www.test.com
$(location).attr('port');                        8082
$(location).attr('protocol');                    http:
$(location).attr('pathname');                    index.php
$(location).attr('href');                        http://www.test.com:8082/index.php#tab2
$(location).attr('hash');                       #tab2
$(location).attr('search');                     ?foo=123

Try like this.

var hostname = window.location.origin

If the URL is "http://example.com/path" then you will get  "http://example.com" as the result.

This won't work for local domains

When you have URL like "https://localhost/MyProposal/MyDir/MyTestPage.aspx" 
and your virtual directory path is "https://localhost/MyProposal/" 
In such cases, you will get "https://localhost".