Javascript split can keep splitted value?

Question

In Javascript :

var myString = \"This is my string\";

console.log(myString.split(/(\\s)/));

Output : [\"This\", \" \", \"is\", \" \"

Answer 1

If you use a "capturing" group for the split pattern then the assumption is that probably you're interested in the group and therefore Javascript adds the group to the result.

If for example you use a "non-capturing" group instead then the result of the split is the same as when not using a group at all..

"This is my string".split(/(?:\s)/) → ["This", "is", "my", "string"]

Indeed there can be cases in which you may need a capturing group for the match (e.g. if you need a back-reference) but you're not interested in the separators. The workaround in those cases is to simply keep every other element of the result.