Javascript Replace Regex

Question

Ok, I'm actually trying to replace text.

Basically, I am needing to replace all instances of this: | with a blank string ''

However, this isn't working:

langName = langName.replace(/|/g, '');

Also, would be best if I could also replace all of these instances within the string, with a '' also:

" double quote

' single quote

/ back slash

\ forward slash

And any other html entity characters. Arrggg.

Can someone please help me here? Perhaps it can be turned into a String.prototype function so I can use it more than once?

Thanks :)

Sarfraz · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-27 07:11:10Z

3

You need to escape | with \ like:

langName = langName.replace(/\|/g, '');

Test Case:

var langName = 'this| is | some string';

langName = langName.replace(/\|/g, '');
alert(langName);

Output:

this is some string

The reason why you need to escape | is that it is special regex character.

Alternatively, you could also use split and join like this:

langName = langName.split('|').join('');

edited Dec 27, 2010 at 7:11

answered Dec 27, 2010 at 7:03

Sarfraz

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5 Comments

SoLoGHoST Over a year ago

OMG, it's that simple... argg. Thanks, giving it a try now... lol

SoLoGHoST Over a year ago

which is faster? split().join() or replace()?

Sarfraz Over a year ago

@SoLoGHoST: I haven't benchmarked them but whenever i can use split and join, i go for them. As for speed, there shouldn't be much difference if the string isn't that huge which is the case mostly :)

SoLoGHoST Over a year ago

So if the character | doesn't exist in the string, split and join won't work will it? So, I'm guessing that langName would return an empty string in that case?

Sarfraz Over a year ago

@Sologhost: It would return string as it is, in our case this is some string

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