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 don't know the performance of RegEx, but here is another alternative for RegEx leverages native HashSet and works in O( max(str.length, delimeter.length) ) complexity instead:

var multiSplit = function(str,delimiter){
    if (!(delimiter instanceof Array))
        return str.split(delimiter);
    if (!delimiter || delimiter.length == 0)
        return [str];
    var hashSet = new Set(delimiter);
    if (hashSet.has(""))
        return str.split("");
    var lastIndex = 0;
    var result = [];
    for(var i = 0;i<str.length;i++){
        if (hashSet.has(str[i])){
            result.push(str.substring(lastIndex,i));
            lastIndex = i+1;
        }
    }
    result.push(str.substring(lastIndex));
    return result;
}

multiSplit('1,2,3.4.5.6 7 8 9',[',','.',' ']);
// Output: ["1", "2", "3", "4", "5", "6", "7", "8", "9"]

multiSplit('1,2,3.4.5.6 7 8 9',' ');
// Output: ["1,2,3.4.5.6", "7", "8", "9"]

Answer 2

My refactor of @Brian answer

var string = 'and this is some kind of information and another text and simple and some egample or red or text';
var separators = ['and', 'or'];

function splitMulti(str, separators){
            var tempChar = 't3mp'; //prevent short text separator in split down
            
            //split by regex e.g. \b(or|and)\b
            var re = new RegExp('\\b(' + separators.join('|') + ')\\b' , "g");
            str = str.replace(re, tempChar).split(tempChar);
            
            // trim & remove empty
            return str.map(el => el.trim()).filter(el => el.length > 0);
}

console.log(splitMulti(string, separators))

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!"

Answer 4

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 Aaron and use a character class.)

(Examples tested in Safari + FF)