Regex replace all commas with value

Question

I have a string that looks like this: "Doe, John, A" (lastname, firstname, middle initial).

I'm trying to write a regular expression that converts the string into "Doe*John*A".

However, I have to take into account all spaces for this string so "Doe , John , A" would still convert into "Doe*John*A".

ALSO, the string "Doe John A" should convert into "Doe*John*A".

I started writing this, but I think I'm stuck on the spaces & the possibility of the user not supplying the commas.

Here's what I have:

var myString = "John, Doe, A";
var myOtherString = "John  Doe   A";


var myFunction = function (aString) {
        aString = aString.replace(", ", "*");
        aString = aString.replace(", ", "*");

return aString;

};

These should both return "Doe*John*A".

I think I'm repeating myself too much in this function. I'm also not taking into account the possibility that no commas will be provided.

Is there a better way to do this?

Martin Ender · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-19T16:01:47.040

17

Yes, there is. Use the replace function with a regex instead. That has a few advantages. Firstly, you don't have to call it twice anymore. Secondly it's really easy to account for an arbitrary amount of spaces and an optional comma:

aString = aString.replace(/[ ]*,[ ]*|[ ]+/g, '*');

Note that the square brackets around the spaces are optional, but I find they make the space characters more easily readable. If you want to allow/remove any kind of whitespace there (tabs and line breaks, too), use \s instead:

aString = aString.replace(/\s*,\s*|\s+,/g, '*');

Note that in both cases we cannot simply make the comma optional, because that would allow zero-width matches, which would introduce a * at every single position in the string. (Thanks to CruorVult for pointing this out)

edited Dec 19 '12 at 16:01

answered Dec 19 '12 at 15:43

Martin Ender

43,427
11
90
130

`"Doe , John , A".replace(/\s*,?\s*/g, '*');//"*D*o*e**J*o*h*n**A*"` – CruorVult Dec 19 '12 at 16:01
What if I wanted to replace the *s with dashes? Would I just change this to be `aString = aString.replace(/[ ]*,[ ]*|[ ]+/g, '-'); ?` --thanks for the helpful answer, btw. – Jeff Dec 19 '12 at 18:09
@1__ yup, the second parameter is the replacement string – Martin Ender Dec 19 '12 at 22:22
@CruorVult will you please solve my question? i know you have solved such type of issue. [link](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27010351/unbalanced-calls-to-begin-end-appearance-transitions-for-qlremotepreviewcontent) – RamGrg Nov 20 '14 at 07:12

CruorVult · Answer 2 · 2012-12-19T16:23:20.100

8

If you want to replace all non-word characters try this:

str.replace(/\W+/g, '*');

edited Dec 19 '12 at 16:23

answered Dec 19 '12 at 15:54

CruorVult

823
1
9
17

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 19 '12 at 15:43

3

String.replace only replaces the first occurence. To replace them all, add the "g" flag for "global". You can also use character groups and the +operator (one or more) to match chains of characters:

aString.replace("[,\s]+", "*", "g");

This will replace all chains of commas and whitespaces with a *.

answered Dec 19 '12 at 15:43

Philipp

67,764
9
118
153

2

again, this is not how regexes are written and how modifiers are applied in javascript – Martin Ender Dec 19 '12 at 15:47

bonCodigo · Answer 4 · 2012-12-19T23:38:56.897

1

Try this out to remove all spaces and commas, then replace with *.

Myname= myname.replace(/[,\s]/,"*")

Editted as removing 'at least two items' from the pattern. But to have at least on item.

Myname= myname.replace(/([,\s]{1,})/,"*")

Reference: on Rublar. However you are better off with regexpal as per m.buettner :)

edited Dec 19 '12 at 23:38

answered Dec 19 '12 at 15:49

bonCodigo

14,268
1
48
91

You should have made it "at least one item". Now you will get as many `*` as you had spaces and commas before – Martin Ender Dec 19 '12 at 22:23
Yup, that's right, but that's not the pattern in your answer (you should use [regexpal](http://regexpal.com) though, since it's a Javascript question) – Martin Ender Dec 19 '12 at 23:20
@m.buettner thank you for regexpal. I usually depend on multiple chopping in rublar then adjust it for c#,javascript etc.. Now this makes things convenient. – bonCodigo Dec 19 '12 at 23:40
there is also [RegexHero](http://regexhero.net/) for .NET and [RegexPlanet](http://www.regexplanet.com/) for a few other ones (it's mostly, the go-to tester for Java, though, I think) – Martin Ender Dec 20 '12 at 00:16
let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/21420/discussion-between-boncodigo-and-m-buettner) – bonCodigo Dec 20 '12 at 00:25

Regex replace all commas with value

4 Answers4

Linked