Javascript replace string which doesn't match?

Question

Say I have this string:

cat hates dog

When i do a replace :

str = str.replace('cat', 'fish');

I will only get "cat" replaced by "fish" , how to get it works like this:

so I will get new string:

fish goat goat

dfsq · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-06 10:17:59Z

4

You can use this regexp \b\w+?\b:

"cat hates dog".replace(/\b\w+?\b/g, function(a) {
    return a === 'cat' ? 'fish' : 'goat';
});

It will match every word (sequence of word characters \w surrounded by word boundary \b) and pass match results in replace callback;

Output:

fish goat goat

answered Feb 6, 2014 at 10:17

dfsq

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