I have a string, let's say Hello world
and I need to replace the char at index 3. How can I replace a char by specifying a index?
var str = "hello world";
I need something like
str.replaceAt(0,"h");
str[0] = 'x'
doesn't seem to throw any errors, yet doesn't have the desired effect!
"use strict"
is activated: Uncaught TypeError: Cannot assign to read only property '0' of string 'hello world'
(at least in webkit browsers)
In JavaScript, strings are immutable, which means the best you can do is to create a new string with the changed content and assign the variable to point to it.
You'll need to define the replaceAt()
function yourself:
String.prototype.replaceAt = function(index, replacement) {
return this.substring(0, index) + replacement + this.substring(index + replacement.length);
}
And use it like this:
var hello = "Hello World";
alert(hello.replaceAt(2, "!!")); // He!!o World
There is no replaceAt
function in JavaScript. You can use the following code to replace any character in any string at specified position:
function rep() { var str = 'Hello World'; str = setCharAt(str,4,'a'); alert(str); } function setCharAt(str,index,chr) { if(index > str.length-1) return str; return str.substring(0,index) + chr + str.substring(index+1); }
function setCharAt(str,idx,newChr){ return str.substring(0,idx)+newChr+str.substring(idx+1);}
substring
, not substr
... and where in your link does it say that either function is "legacy" or should be avoided? ...substring
and substr
serve different purposes.
You can't. Take the characters before and after the position and concat into a new string:
var s = "Hello world";
var index = 3;
s = s.substring(0, index) + 'x' + s.substring(index + 1);
str = str.split('');
str[3] = 'h';
str = str.join('');
split
and join
Array.from
is significantly slower than str.split
. blog.shovonhasan.com/…
replace
method with regexp instead.
str.splice(3, h.length, ...h.split(''))
or str.splice.apply(str, [3, h.length].concat(h.split('')))
but this seems crazy compared to str.substring(0,3) + h + str.substring(5)
.
There are lot of answers here, and all of them are based on two methods:
METHOD1: split the string using two substrings and stuff the character between them
METHOD2: convert the string to character array, replace one array member and join it
Personally, I would use these two methods in different cases. Let me explain.
@FabioPhms: Your method was the one I initially used and I was afraid that it is bad on string with lots of characters. However, question is what's a lot of characters? I tested it on 10 "lorem ipsum" paragraphs and it took a few milliseconds. Then I tested it on 10 times larger string - there was really no big difference. Hm.
@vsync, @Cory Mawhorter: Your comments are unambiguous; however, again, what is a large string? I agree that for 32...100kb performance should better and one should use substring-variant for this one operation of character replacement.
But what will happen if I have to make quite a few replacements?
I needed to perform my own tests to prove what is faster in that case. Let's say we have an algorithm that will manipulate a relatively short string that consists of 1000 characters. We expect that in average each character in that string will be replaced ~100 times. So, the code to test something like this is:
var str = "... {A LARGE STRING HERE} ...";
for(var i=0; i<100000; i++)
{
var n = '' + Math.floor(Math.random() * 10);
var p = Math.floor(Math.random() * 1000);
// replace character *n* on position *p*
}
I created a fiddle for this, and it's here. There are two tests, TEST1 (substring) and TEST2 (array conversion).
Results:
TEST1: 195ms
TEST2: 6ms
It seems that array conversion beats substring by 2 orders of magnitude! So - what the hell happened here???
What actually happens is that all operations in TEST2 are done on array itself, using assignment expression like strarr2[p] = n
. Assignment is really fast compared to substring on a large string, and its clear that it's going to win.
So, it's all about choosing the right tool for the job. Again.
Work with vectors is usually most effective to contact String.
I suggest the following function:
String.prototype.replaceAt=function(index, char) {
var a = this.split("");
a[index] = char;
return a.join("");
}
Run this snippet:
String.prototype.replaceAt=function(index, char) { var a = this.split(""); a[index] = char; return a.join(""); } var str = "hello world"; str = str.replaceAt(3, "#"); document.write(str);
Array.prototype.replace = function(index, val) { this[index] = val; return this; };
'word'.split('').replace(1, '0').join(''); // returns 'w0rd'
In Javascript strings are immutable so you have to do something like
var x = "Hello world"
x = x.substring(0, i) + 'h' + x.substring(i+1);
To replace the character in x at i with 'h'
function dothis() {
var x = document.getElementById("x").value;
var index = document.getElementById("index").value;
var text = document.getElementById("text").value;
var length = document.getElementById("length").value;
var arr = x.split("");
arr.splice(index, length, text);
var result = arr.join("");
document.getElementById('output').innerHTML = result;
console.log(result);
}
dothis();
This method is good for small length strings but may be slow for larger text.
var x = "White Dog";
var arr = x.split(""); // ["W", "h", "i", "t", "e", " ", "D", "o", "g"]
arr.splice(6, 1, 'F');
/*
Here 6 is starting index and 1 is no. of array elements to remove and
final argument 'F' is the new character to be inserted.
*/
var result = arr.join(""); // "White Fog"
Array.from
can also be used here. but Array.from was added in ES2015 and has no support in older browsers. Also, i personally prefer split
function because it gives more freedom to play with the string patterns.
arr[6]='F';
instead of .splice()
.
One-liner using String.replace with callback (no emoji support):
// 0 - index to replace, 'f' - replacement string
'dog'.replace(/./g, (c, i) => i == 0? 'f': c)
// "fog"
Explained:
//String.replace will call the callback on each pattern match
//in this case - each character
'dog'.replace(/./g, function (character, index) {
if (index == 0) //we want to replace the first character
return 'f'
return character //leaving other characters the same
})
Generalizing Afanasii Kurakin's answer, we have:
function replaceAt(str, index, ch) { return str.replace(/./g, (c, i) => i == index ? ch : c); } let str = 'Hello World'; str = replaceAt(str, 1, 'u'); console.log(str); // Hullo World
Let's expand and explain both the regular expression and the replacer function:
function replaceAt(str, index, newChar) { function replacer(origChar, strIndex) { if (strIndex === index) return newChar; else return origChar; } return str.replace(/./g, replacer); } let str = 'Hello World'; str = replaceAt(str, 1, 'u'); console.log(str); // Hullo World
The regular expression .
matches exactly one character. The g
makes it match every character in a for loop. The replacer
function is called given both the original character and the index of where that character is in the string. We make a simple if
statement to determine if we're going to return either origChar
or newChar
.
var str = "hello world"; console.log(str); var arr = [...str]; arr[0] = "H"; str = arr.join(""); console.log(str);
This works similar to Array.splice
:
String.prototype.splice = function (i, j, str) {
return this.substr(0, i) + str + this.substr(j, this.length);
};
You could try
var strArr = str.split("");
strArr[0] = 'h';
str = strArr.join("");
@CemKalyoncu: Thanks for the great answer!
I also adapted it slightly to make it more like the Array.splice method (and took @Ates' note into consideration):
spliceString=function(string, index, numToDelete, char) {
return string.substr(0, index) + char + string.substr(index+numToDelete);
}
var myString="hello world!";
spliceString(myString,myString.lastIndexOf('l'),2,'mhole'); // "hello wormhole!"
Array.splice
type functionality.
You could try
var strArr = str.split("");
strArr[0] = 'h';
str = strArr.join("");
Check out this function for printing steps
steps(3)
// '# '
// '## '
// '###'
function steps(n, i = 0, arr = Array(n).fill(' ').join('')) {
if (i === n) {
return;
}
str = arr.split('');
str[i] = '#';
str = str.join('');
console.log(str);
steps(n, (i = i + 1), str);
}
If you want to replace characters in string, you should create mutable strings. These are essentially character arrays. You could create a factory:
function MutableString(str) {
var result = str.split("");
result.toString = function() {
return this.join("");
}
return result;
}
Then you can access the characters and the whole array converts to string when used as string:
var x = MutableString("Hello");
x[0] = "B"; // yes, we can alter the character
x.push("!"); // good performance: no new string is created
var y = "Hi, "+x; // converted to string: "Hi, Bello!"
this is easily achievable with RegExp!
const str = 'Hello RegEx!';
const index = 11;
const replaceWith = 'p';
//'Hello RegEx!'.replace(/^(.{11})(.)/, `$1p`);
str.replace(new RegExp(`^(.{${ index }})(.)`), `$1${ replaceWith }`);
//< "Hello RegExp"
You can extend the string type to include the inset method:
String.prototype.append = function (index,value) { return this.slice(0,index) + value + this.slice(index); }; var s = "New string"; alert(s.append(4,"complete "));
Then you can call the function:
Using the spread syntax, you may convert the string to an array, assign the character at the given position, and convert back to a string:
const str = "hello world"; function replaceAt(s, i, c) { const arr = [...s]; // Convert string to array arr[i] = c; // Set char c at pos i return arr.join(''); // Back to string } // prints "hallo world" console.log(replaceAt(str, 1, 'a'));
You can concatenate using sub-string function at first select text before targeted index and after targeted index then concatenate with your potential char or string. This one is better
const myString = "Hello world";
const index = 3;
const stringBeforeIndex = myString.substring(0, index);
const stringAfterIndex = myString.substring(index + 1);
const replaceChar = "X";
myString = stringBeforeIndex + replaceChar + stringAfterIndex;
console.log("New string - ", myString)
or
const myString = "Hello world";
let index = 3;
myString = myString.substring(0, index) + "X" + myString.substring(index + 1);
I did a function that does something similar to what you ask, it checks if a character in string is in an array of not allowed characters if it is it replaces it with ''
var validate = function(value){
var notAllowed = [";","_",">","<","'","%","$","&","/","|",":","=","*"];
for(var i=0; i<value.length; i++){
if(notAllowed.indexOf(value.charAt(i)) > -1){
value = value.replace(value.charAt(i), "");
value = validate(value);
}
}
return value;
}
Here is a version I came up with if you want to style words or individual characters at their index in react/javascript.
replaceAt( yourArrayOfIndexes, yourString/orArrayOfStrings )
Working example: https://codesandbox.io/s/ov7zxp9mjq
function replaceAt(indexArray, [...string]) {
const replaceValue = i => string[i] = <b>{string[i]}</b>;
indexArray.forEach(replaceValue);
return string;
}
And here is another alternate method
function replaceAt(indexArray, [...string]) {
const startTag = '<b>';
const endTag = '</b>';
const tagLetter = i => string.splice(i, 1, startTag + string[i] + endTag);
indexArray.forEach(tagLetter);
return string.join('');
}
And another...
function replaceAt(indexArray, [...string]) {
for (let i = 0; i < indexArray.length; i++) {
string = Object.assign(string, {
[indexArray[i]]: <b>{string[indexArray[i]]}</b>
});
}
return string;
}
Here is my solution using the ternary and map operator. More readable, maintainable end easier to understand if you ask me.
It is more into es6 and best practices.
function replaceAt() { const replaceAt = document.getElementById('replaceAt').value; const str = 'ThisIsATestStringToReplaceCharAtSomePosition'; const newStr = Array.from(str).map((character, charIndex) => charIndex === (replaceAt - 1) ? '' : character).join(''); console.log(`New string: ${newStr}`); }
I know this is old but the solution does not work for negative index so I add a patch to it. hope it helps someone
String.prototype.replaceAt=function(index, character) {
if(index>-1) return this.substr(0, index) + character + this.substr(index+character.length);
else return this.substr(0, this.length+index) + character + this.substr(index+character.length);
}
Lets say you want to replace Kth
index (0-based index) with 'Z'
. You could use Regex
to do this.
var re = var re = new RegExp("((.){" + K + "})((.){1})")
str.replace(re, "$1A$`");
You can use the following function to replace Character
or String
at a particular position of a String. To replace all the following match cases use String.prototype.replaceAllMatches()
function.
String.prototype.replaceMatch = function(matchkey, replaceStr, matchIndex) {
var retStr = this, repeatedIndex = 0;
for (var x = 0; (matchkey != null) && (retStr.indexOf(matchkey) > -1); x++) {
if (repeatedIndex == 0 && x == 0) {
repeatedIndex = retStr.indexOf(matchkey);
} else { // matchIndex > 0
repeatedIndex = retStr.indexOf(matchkey, repeatedIndex + 1);
}
if (x == matchIndex) {
retStr = retStr.substring(0, repeatedIndex) + replaceStr + retStr.substring(repeatedIndex + (matchkey.length));
matchkey = null; // To break the loop.
}
}
return retStr;
};
Test:
var str = "yash yas $dfdas.**";
console.log('Index Matched replace : ', str.replaceMatch('as', '*', 2) );
console.log('Index Matched replace : ', str.replaceMatch('y', '~', 1) );
Output:
Index Matched replace : yash yas $dfd*.**
Index Matched replace : yash ~as $dfdas.**
My safe approach with negative indexes
/**
* @param {string} str
* @param {number} index
* @param {string} replacement
* @returns {string}
*/
static replaceAt (str, index, replacement)
{
if (index < 0) index = str.length + index
if (index < 0 || index >= str.length) throw new Error(`Index (${index}) out of bounds "${str}"`)
return str.substring(0, index) + replacement + str.substring(index + 1)
}
Use it like that:
replaceAt('my string', -1, 'G') // 'my strinG'
replaceAt('my string', 2, 'yy') // 'myyystring'
replaceAt('my string', 22, 'yy') // Uncaught Error: Index (22) out of bounds "my string"
The methods on here are complicated. I would do it this way:
var myString = "this is my string";
myString = myString.replace(myString.charAt(number goes here), "insert replacement here");
This is as simple as it gets.
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