What is the difference between indexOf() and search()?

Question

Being fairly new to JavaScript, I\'m unable to discern when to use each of these.

Can anyone help clarify this for me?

Answer 1

Without a regex, there is no practical difference between indexOf and search.

The below example gives a live demo:

function FromSearch() {

  var str = document.getElementById("demo").innerText;
  var n = str.search("difference");
  document.getElementById("Location").innerHTML = n;
}

function FromindexOf() {
  var str = document.getElementById("demo").innerText;
  var n = str.indexOf("difference");
  document.getElementById("Location").innerHTML = n;
}

<p id="demo">Without a <a href='http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_regexp.asp'>regex</a>, there is no practical difference between <a href='http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_indexof.asp'>indexOf</a> and <a href='http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_search.asp'>search</a>
</p>

<button onclick="FromSearch()">From search</button>

<button onclick="FromindexOf()">From indexOf</button>

<p>Location of difference in the above sentence is:</p>

<mark id="Location"></mark>

Answer 2

The search function (one description here) takes a regular expression, which allows you to match against more sophisticated patters, case-insensitive strings, etc., while indexOf (one description here) simply matches a literal string. However, indexOf also allows you to specify a beginning index.