September 25, 2000 - Splitting a String

Yehuda Shiran September 25, 2000
Splitting a String
Tips: September 2000

Yehuda Shiran, Ph.D.
Doc JavaScript

Javascript's String object contains several useful methods which can help ease the pain of string manipulation. One of these methods is the split() function.

The split() function is really quite easy to use:

var myString = new String('red,green,blue');
var myArray = myString.split(',');

You will get:

myArray[0] is 'red'
  • myArray[1] is 'green'
  • myArray[2] is 'blue'

    The full syntax for the split() method is:

    split([separator][, limit])

    Where:

    separator is a string containing the character (or characters) which is used as the delimiter.
  • limit is the maximum number of substrings to be extracted.

    Using the limit parameter you can choose to extract only the first few elements from a string:

    var myString = new String('red,green,blue');
var myArray = myString.split(',', 2);

    and get:

    myArray[0] is 'red'
  • myArray[1] is 'green'

    This tip has been contributed by Amos Bannister.