CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptregexstringsplit
Marek Miettinen
Marek Miettinen

Reputation: 399

How to split a string on the first occurrence of one of multiple substrings in JavaScript?

Given strings

s1 = "abcfoodefbarghi"

and 

s2 = "abcbardefooghi"

How can I split s1 into "abc" and "defbarghi" and s2 into "abc" and "defooghi" That is: split a string into two on the first occurrence of either one of strings "foo" or "bar"

I suppose this could be done with s.split(/regexp/), but what should this regexp be?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 3870

Answers (2)

Kent
Kent

Reputation: 195039

str.replace(/foo|bar/,"\x034").split("\x034")

idea is replace the first occurrence with a special(invisible) String, and then split against this string.

Upvotes: 2

Rob W
Rob W

Reputation: 348992

Use a Regular Expression in this way:

var match = s1.match(/^([\S\s]*?)(?:foo|bar)([\S\s]*)$/);
/* If foo or bar is found:
  match[1] contains the first part
  match[2] contains the second part */

Explanation of the RE:

  • [\S\s]*? matches just enough characters to match the next part of the RE, which is
  • (foo|bar) either "foo", or "bar"
  • [\S\s]* matches the remaining characters

Parentheses around a part of a RE creates a group, so that the grouped match can be referred, while (?:) creates a non-referrable group.

Upvotes: 3

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