Split string by regex in JavaScript

Question

I'm trying to split a string by the following array of characters:

"!", "%", "$", "@"

I thought about using regex, so I developed the following method which I thought would split the string by the characters:

var splitted = string.split(/\!|%|\$|@*/);

However, when I run the following code, the output is split by every character, not what I was hoping for:

var toSplit = "abc%123!def$456@ghi";
var splittedArray = toSplit.split(/\!|%|\$|@*/);

How could I make it so that splittedArray contains the following elements?

"abc", "123", "def", "456", "ghi"

Any help appreciated.

John Kugelman · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-18 22:37:30Z

3

@* matches the empty string and there's an empty string between any two characters, so the string is split at every single character. Use + instead:

/\!|%|\$|@+/

Also if you meant the + to apply to every character and not just @ then group them up:

/(\!|%|\$|@)+/

Or better yet, use a character class. This lets you omit the backslashes since none of these characters are special inside square brackets.

/[!%$@]+/

answered Dec 18, 2012 at 22:37

John Kugelman

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Andrew Clark · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-18 22:37:53Z

2

Use the following:

var splittedArray = toSplit.split(/[!%$@]+/);

Your current code will split between every character because @* will match empty strings. I am assuming since you used @* that you want to consider consecutive characters a single delimiter, which is why the + is at the end of the regex. This will only match one or more characters, so it will not match empty strings.

The [...] syntax is a character class, which is like alternation with the | character except that it only works for single characters, so [!%$@] will match either !, %, $, or @. Inside of the character class the escaping rules change a little bit, so you can just use $ instead of \$.

answered Dec 18, 2012 at 22:37

Andrew Clark

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1 Comment

Andrew Clark Over a year ago

@T.J.Crowder Added explanation, I usually post the code first and then add details in an edit.

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