Using JavaScript's replace() method with global switch on a variable

Question

I can't any example of this after being unable to puzzle out how it would work on my own.

All I want to do is take a string which has been assigned to a value, and use that as the replace match string for all matches.

var replacement = 'i';
var text = 'tieiam';

text = text.replace(replacement, '');  // 'teiam'

text = text.replace(/tieiam/g, ''); // 'team'

How do I use them together??

possible duplicate of How do you pass a variable to a Regular Expression JavaScript? — fxp
– fxp, Commented Nov 6, 2013 at 7:46

cgp · Accepted Answer · 2009-06-26 13:34:31Z

21

What you want is to use the RegExp object:

text = text.replace(new RegExp(replacement, 'g'), '');

answered Jun 26, 2009 at 13:34

cgp

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1 Comment

Don't forget to escape regexp special chars with backslashes