Split long text into string array

Question

I need a method to split a string into an array of smaller strings, spliting it by word count. It is, I'm looking for a function like that:

function cut(long_string, number_of_words) { ... }

var str = "word1 word2 word3 word4 word5 word6 word7 word8 word9 word10 word11 word12";
var arr = cut(str, 3);

In this case, cut should return 4 arrays with 3 words each. I've tried to figure out a regex for String.match() or String.split(), but I don't know how to do it..

try using the split function for strings. you could split the string into words using the space as a delimiter and then create an array using the number of word to determine the length — GreenGiant
– GreenGiant, Commented May 30, 2012 at 19:12

Niet the Dark Absol · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-30 19:11:44Z

2

First split it by spaces, then chunk the array together.

function cut(input,words) {
    input = input.split(" ");
    var l = input.length, i, ret = [];
    for( i=0; i<l; i+=words) {
        ret.push(input.splice(0,words));
    }
    return ret;
}

answered May 30, 2012 at 19:11

Niet the Dark Absol

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Comments

fb55 · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-30 19:27:22Z

1

Let's do something crazy:

function cut(str, num){
    return str.match(new RegExp("(?:(?:^|\\s)\\S+){1," + num + "}", "g"));
}

This creates a new RegExp at every run and matches the string. There are probably better solutions in terms of speed, but this is wonderful Mad Science(TM). And it's short.

answered May 30, 2012 at 19:27

fb55

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3 Comments

georg Over a year ago

This leaves trailing spaces in substrings. See my answer for a better way.

Ivan Over a year ago

I've tested with several strings in Chrome and Firefox (latest versions) and it works perfectly @thg435

georg Over a year ago

@Ivan: resulting substrings contain extra leading spaces (not trailing, my mistake). cut("a b c d", 2) -> ["a b", " c d"]

georg · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-30 19:47:45Z

Make a function that splits an array into chunks:

chunk = function(ary, len) {
    var i = 0, res = [];
    for (var i = 0; i < ary.length; i += len)
        res.push(ary.slice(i, i + len));
    return res;
}

and apply this function to the list of words:

var str = "word1 word2 word3 word4 word5 word6 word7 word8 word9 word10 word11";
chunk(str.match(/\w+/g), 3)

str.match(/\w+/g) can be also str.split(/\s+/) depending on how you want to handle non-word characters.

If you only interested to create an array of substrings (and not arrays of words as the question states), here's a solution that doesn't leave trailing spaces in substrings:

str.match(new RegExp("(\\S+\\s+){1," + (num - 1) + "}\\S+", "g"))

returns

["word1 word2 word3", "word4 word5 word6", "word7 word8 word9", "word10 word11 word12"]

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