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

I will provide a classic implementation for a such function. The code works in almost all versions of JavaScript and is somehow optimum.

• It doesn't uses regex, which is hard to maintain
• It doesn't uses new features of JavaScript
• It doesn't uses multiple .split() .join() invocation which require more computer memory

Just pure code:

var text = "Create a function, that will return an array (of string), with the words inside the text";

println(getWords(text));

function getWords(text)
{
    let startWord = -1;
    let ar = [];

    for(let i = 0; i <= text.length; i++)
    {
        let c = i < text.length ? text[i] : " ";

        if (!isSeparator(c) && startWord < 0)
        {
            startWord = i;
        }

        if (isSeparator(c) && startWord >= 0)
        {
            let word = text.substring(startWord, i);
            ar.push(word);

            startWord = -1;
        }
    }

    return ar;
}

function isSeparator(c)
{
    var separators = [" ", "\t", "\n", "\r", ",", ";", ".", "!", "?", "(", ")"];
    return separators.includes(c);
}

You can see the code running in playground: https://codeguppy.com/code.html?IJI0E4OGnkyTZnoszAzf