Replace all instances in string with a variable as the search - JavaScript

Question

I am having an issue which I cannot find documented anywhere, i see a regex method however that is using a direct string rather than string within a variable. This is my code:

var src = getQueryVariable("srcStr");

            if(src != false){
               $(".entry-content").html($(".entry-content")
              .html().replace(/src/g, "<span style='background-color:#f2e128;'>" 
              + src + "</span>"));

}

This gets a url variable (srcStr) and searches a body of text within .entry-content for the string stored in the var src.

The problem code is here: replace(/src/g

Is there a solution?

I might not understand what you're trying to say, but anytime you see a method that asks for a string, you can use a variable that's storing a string. — Gonzalo Quero
– Gonzalo Quero, Commented Dec 3, 2012 at 12:51

Explosion Pills · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-03 12:51:00Z

9

You are searching for the pattern that is literally "src." You need to use the RegExp class if you want to use variables in patterns:

pattern = new RegExp(src, 'g');
$(".entry-content")...html().replace(pattern, replacement);

answered Dec 3, 2012 at 12:51

Explosion Pills

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2 Comments

Tomalak Over a year ago

This advice is flawed. Don't recommend building regular expressions from strings without also saying that the string must be regex-quoted first.

Elias Van Ootegem Over a year ago

Just a note of caution: if the src string contains special chars (mainly ``) you'll need to escape that char

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