How do I split a string with multiple separators in javascript?

Question

How do I split a string with multiple separators in JavaScript? I'm trying to split on both commas and spaces but, AFAIK, js's split function only supports one separator.

Answer 1

Perhaps you should do some sort of string replace to turn one separator into the other separator so you then only have one separator to deal with in your split.

Answer 2

You can pass a regex into Javascript's split operator. For example:

"1,2 3".split(/,| /) 
["1", "2", "3"]

Or, if you want to allow multiple separators together to act as one only:

"1, 2, , 3".split(/(?:,| )+/) 
["1", "2", "3"]

(You have to use the non-capturing (?:) parens because otherwise it gets spliced back into the result. Or you can be smart like zacherates and use a character class.)

(Examples tested in Safari + FF)

Answer 3

Pass in a regexp as the parameter:

js> "Hello awesome, world!".split(/[\s,]+/)
Hello,awesome,world!

Edited to add:

You can get the last element by selecting the length of the array minus 1:

>>> bits = "Hello awesome, world!".split(/[\s,]+/)
["Hello", "awesome", "world!"]
>>> bit = bits[bits.length - 1]
"world!"

... and if the pattern doesn't match:

>>> bits = "Hello awesome, world!".split(/foo/)
["Hello awesome, world!"]
>>> bits[bits.length - 1]
"Hello awesome, world!"