replace the first word of a javascript string using regular expression

Question

In the string

somethingcryptic12A@#$~` abc def@#

, I would like to replace the first word by new so that it would then be new

new abc def@#

. How can I do this using regular expression. I have made the first word cryptic to indicate that it can contain any character and any number of characters. It's the first word if there is a space after it.

In my defense, I was able to come up with the full solution after some initial help from Some1. I had tried some solutions like [a-zA-Z] but that wouldn't work for all scenarios. — dreamerkumar
– dreamerkumar, Commented Feb 1, 2013 at 19:29

Anirudha · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-01 19:35:07Z

9

You can use this regular expression

^\S+

^ represents start of the string

\S matches any character except space..

+ matches preceding character 1 to many times

edited Feb 1, 2013 at 19:35

answered Feb 1, 2013 at 19:23

Anirudha

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3 Comments

dreamerkumar Over a year ago

correct solution is var newvalue = original.replace(/^\S+/g, 'new');

nhahtdh Over a year ago

\S matches anything other than "whitespace characters", which is equivalent to

[^ \f\n\r\t\v\u00A0\u1680\u180e\u2000\u2001\u2002\u2003\u2004\u2005\u2006\u2007\u2008\u2009\u200a\u2028\u2029\u2028\u2029\u202f\u205f\u3000]

in character class notation.

ErichBSchulz Over a year ago

thanks Vishal - you should post your solution as an answer and I'll upvote it. You saved me five minutes. ta

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