Replace first character of string

Question

I have a string |0|0|0|0

but it needs to be 0|0|0|0

How do I replace the first character ('|') with (''). eg replace('|','')

(with JavaScript)

Answer 1

var newstring = oldstring.substring(1);

Answer 2

You can do exactly what you have :)

var string = "|0|0|0|0";
var newString = string.replace('|','');
alert(newString); // 0|0|0|0

You can see it working here, .replace() in javascript only replaces the first occurrence by default (without /g), so this works to your advantage :)

If you need to check if the first character is a pipe:

var string = "|0|0|0|0";
var newString = string.indexOf('|') == 0 ? string.substring(1) : string;
alert(newString); // 0|0|0|0​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

You can see the result here

Answer 3

It literally is what you suggested.

"|0|0|0".replace('|', '')

returns "0|0|0"

Answer 4

str.replace(/^\|/, "");

This will remove the first character if it's a |.

Answer 5

"|0|0|0|0".split("").reverse().join("")  //can also reverse the string => 0|0|0|0|

Answer 6

If you're not sure what the first character will be ( 0 or | ) then the following makes sense:

// CASE 1:
var str = '|0|0|0';
str.indexOf( '|' ) == 0 ? str = str.replace( '|', '' ) : str;
// str == '0|0|0'

// CASE 2:
var str = '0|0|0';
str.indexOf( '|' ) == 0? str = str.replace( '|', '' ) : str;
// str == '0|0|0'

Without the conditional check, str.replace will still remove the first occurrence of '|' even if it is not the first character in the string. This will give you undesired results in the case of CASE 2 ( str will be '00|0' ).