split with javascript

Question

below is something I am trying to do with JavaScript.

If I have string like

str = "how are you? hope you are doing good" ;

now I want to split it with ? (or . or !) but I dont want to lose the "?". Instead I want to break the string just after the question mark such a way that question mark is with the first segment that we have. also after the ? or / or ! there needs to be a \s (space) in order to break it into segments

after splitting str what should I get is

["how are you?","hope you are doing good"]

I am not sure if it can be done with Javascript split() function ,please help.

We could have done str.split(/(?<=\?)\s+/); but unfortunately javascript doesn't support lookbehind. — Amarghosh
– Amarghosh, Commented May 12, 2010 at 7:03

YOU · Accepted Answer · 2010-05-12 09:12:44Z

12

str.match(/\S[^?]*(?:\?+|$)/g)

["how are you?", "hope you are doing good"]

edited May 12, 2010 at 9:12

answered May 12, 2010 at 6:58

YOU

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5 Comments

Kevin Over a year ago

Just curious, is there a reason you chose to use \S[^?]* over [^?]+?

YOU Over a year ago

just to strip leading whitespaces, @Kevin.

Kevin Over a year ago

Ahh okay, makes sense. Initially read it wrong. Maybe it's time for bed. Anyway, this is definitely the way to do it. Green check mark here!

T.J. Crowder Over a year ago

Nice and simple! But fails with two "?" in a row, e.g. "how are you?? hope you are doing good" => ["how are you?", "? hope you are doing good"] If you drop the whitespace thing (\S), that problem goes away (and you can just clean it after).

YOU Over a year ago

@T.J. Crowder, updated \? to \?+ to support that ?? pattern, If I drop \S it would return 2nd one as " hope you are doing good"

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 11:55:21Z

4

The easiest, most straight-forward way I can see is to just lose the "?" and add it back:

var parts, n;
parts = str.split("?");
for (n = parts.length - 2; n >= 0; --n) { // Skip the last one
    parts[n] += "?";
}
if (str.charAt(str.length-1) == "?") {    // If it ended with "?", add it back
    parts[parts.length-1] += "?";
}

Alternately, though, there's a way via RegExp. Edit Removed mine, S.Mark's regex is so much better.

edited May 23, 2017 at 11:55

CommunityBot

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answered May 12, 2010 at 6:56

T.J. Crowder

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Comments

Sarfraz · Accepted Answer · 2010-05-12 06:53:40Z

2

...

var str = "how are you? hope you are doing good";
var data = str.split('?');
data[0] += '?';

alert(data[0]); // result: how are you?
alert(data[1]); // result: hope you are doing good

answered May 12, 2010 at 6:53

Sarfraz

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Comments

Kobi · Accepted Answer · 2010-05-12 06:59:37Z

2

One option is to use a regex, as in:

str = "how are you? hope you are doing good";
var tokens = str.split(/(\?)/)

but this wil result in the question marks in their own token: how are you,?, hope you are,?, doing good

A better option is:

var tokens = str.match(/[^?]+\?*/g)

This will also keep multiple question marks: "hello??? how are you?"

answered May 12, 2010 at 6:59

Kobi

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Comments

reko_t · Accepted Answer · 2010-05-12 06:59:32Z

1

If JS supported regexp look-behinds all you'd need is split by /(?<=\?)/, but unfortunately it doesn't. However you can very easily get the same behavior with the match() function:

var str = "how are you? hope you are doing good";
var data = str.match(/(?!$)[^?]*\??/g);

Will give you ["how are you?", " hope you are doing good"]

answered May 12, 2010 at 6:59

reko_t

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1 Comment

Sourabh Over a year ago

I tried to change this regex to in order to work with . & ! as well , for example instead of only ? if the condition is like "\?\s" or "\!\s" or "\.\s" . in this case what would be the expression ? so that for sentence like "This is a good example to show? this example to show is good.ok do it" then what we get is ["This is a good example to show?","this example to show is good.ok do it"] as there is no space after the . (fullstop)

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:26:46Z

1

another idea:

var str = "how are you? hope you are doing good",
    strsplit = str.split('?').join('?#').split('#');
alert(strsplit) //=> how are you?, hope you are doing good

or (based on answer & comment from kobi)

var str = "how are you? All right?? Hope so???";
alert(str.replace(/([\?(1,}][^\?$])/g,'$1#!#').split(' #!#'));
  //=>how are you?,All right??,Hope so???

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:26

CommunityBot

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answered May 12, 2010 at 7:00

KooiInc

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1 Comment

Kobi Over a year ago

might as well replace(/\?/g, '?###'), but you're taking a risk if the string already has # signs.

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