How do I replace a character at a particular index in JavaScript?

Question

I have a string, let\'s say Hello world and I need to replace the char at index 3. How can I replace a char by specifying a index?

var str = \"h         


        

Answer 1

You can use the following function to replace Character or String at a particular position of a String. To replace all the following match cases use String.prototype.replaceAllMatches() function.

String.prototype.replaceMatch = function(matchkey, replaceStr, matchIndex) {
    var retStr = this, repeatedIndex = 0;
    for (var x = 0; (matchkey != null) && (retStr.indexOf(matchkey) > -1); x++) {
        if (repeatedIndex == 0 && x == 0) {
            repeatedIndex = retStr.indexOf(matchkey);
        } else { // matchIndex > 0
            repeatedIndex = retStr.indexOf(matchkey, repeatedIndex + 1);
        }
        if (x == matchIndex) {
            retStr = retStr.substring(0, repeatedIndex) + replaceStr + retStr.substring(repeatedIndex + (matchkey.length));
            matchkey = null; // To break the loop.
        }
    }
    return retStr;
};

Test:

var str = "yash yas $dfdas.**";

console.log('Index Matched replace : ', str.replaceMatch('as', '*', 2) );
console.log('Index Matched replace : ', str.replaceMatch('y', '~', 1) );

Output:

Index Matched replace :  yash yas $dfd*.**
Index Matched replace :  yash ~as $dfdas.**

Answer 2

This works similar to Array.splice:

String.prototype.splice = function (i, j, str) {
    return this.substr(0, i) + str + this.substr(j, this.length);
};

Answer 3

If you want to replace characters in string, you should create mutable strings. These are essentially character arrays. You could create a factory:

  function MutableString(str) {
    var result = str.split("");
    result.toString = function() {
      return this.join("");
    }
    return result;
  }

Then you can access the characters and the whole array converts to string when used as string:

  var x = MutableString("Hello");
  x[0] = "B"; // yes, we can alter the character
  x.push("!"); // good performance: no new string is created
  var y = "Hi, "+x; // converted to string: "Hi, Bello!"

Answer 4

In Javascript strings are immutable so you have to do something like

var x = "Hello world"
x = x.substring(0, i) + 'h' + x.substring(i+1);

To replace the character in x at i with 'h'

Answer 5

I know this is old but the solution does not work for negative index so I add a patch to it. hope it helps someone

String.prototype.replaceAt=function(index, character) {
    if(index>-1) return this.substr(0, index) + character + this.substr(index+character.length);
    else return this.substr(0, this.length+index) + character + this.substr(index+character.length);

}

Answer 6

You can't. Take the characters before and after the position and concat into a new string:

var s = "Hello world";
var index = 3;
s = s.substring(0, index) + 'x' + s.substring(index + 1);