How to ignore some word from string replace using regex

Question

I have string which contain 5 to 6 word and i would like to replace some word with highlighter style.

$(document).ready(function() {
     var str = "Micromax Samsung S3 Microsoft Galaxy S";
     var arr = ["Micro", "s"];
     arr.forEach(function(item) {
          str = str.replace(new RegExp(item.replace(/\+/g, "\\+"), "g"), '<span class="red">'+ item +'</span>');
     })
     $('#dvHtml').html(str);
});

But i am getting every s in the entire string including but i don't want to replace .

Can any body help me to exclude or ignore following items from replace

Output should be

Now this will replace Micro with Micro and s with s

Following are output enter image description here

Thanks for your comment, I have updated my question with output — imdadhusen
– imdadhusen, Commented Dec 30, 2013 at 7:58

Grundy · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-30 08:40:46Z

3

You need change your regexp something like this

var str = "Micromax Samsung S3 Microsoft Galaxy S";
var arr = ["Micro", "s"];
var t = str.replace(new RegExp('\\b('+arr.join('|')+')',"gi"), '<span class="red">$1</span>');

$('#dvHtml').html(t);

in this

\b - find in begin word
arr.join('|') - return string like a|b - so find any of them
gi - flag for global and ignore case

you can try it on JSFiddle

edited Dec 30, 2013 at 8:40

answered Dec 30, 2013 at 8:13

Grundy

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9 Comments

Edgar Villegas Alvarado Over a year ago

You can't apply the same procedure to the string again... is that valid for the asker?

Grundy Over a year ago

@EdgarVillegasAlvarado what you mean?

Edgar Villegas Alvarado Over a year ago

if you do str = t and then rerun the replace line, it breaks. Is it valid for the asker? Maybe it is

Edgar Villegas Alvarado Over a year ago

Or, if your initial str = 'Micromax X dd', it also breaks

Grundy Over a year ago

@EdgarVillegasAlvarado i don't change source string, only save result to another string

|

Edgar Villegas Alvarado · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-30 10:31:53Z

2

Here you have another solution.

function escapeRegExp(str) {
  return str.replace(/[\-\[\]\/\{\}\(\)\*\+\?\.\\\^\$\|]/g, "\\$&");
}

function highlight(str, needle){      
      var parts = str.split(/<[/]?span.*?>/gi);
      for(var i=0; i<parts.length; i++){
          if(i%2 == 0){            
              parts[i] = parts[i].replace(new RegExp("("+escapeRegExp(needle)+")", 'gi'), '<span class="red">$1</span>');        
          }else{
              parts[i] = '<span class="red">'+ parts[i] +'</span>';                
          }
      }
      return parts.join('');    
}

$(document).ready(function() {
   var str = "Micromax Samsung S3 Microsoft Galaxy S";
   var arr = ["Micro", "S"];
   arr.forEach(function(item) {
        str = highlight(str, item);
   });
   console.log(str);
   $('#dvHtml').html(str);
});

The advantage of this one is that you can reapply the highlight method as many times as you want on the processed string.

JSFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/edgarinvillegas/4ZK7W/2/

Also, you can have special characters in the string to search. For example, var arr = ["Micro", "Sam|"] does not highlight "Sam", but highlights "Sam|" if it existed in the str .

Cheers, from La Paz Bolivia

edited Dec 30, 2013 at 10:31

answered Dec 30, 2013 at 10:18

Edgar Villegas Alvarado

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1 Comment

imdadhusen Over a year ago

Excellent...really i appreciate your effort and it is really help me to escape char or string form sentence. my vote +

Edgar Villegas Alvarado · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-30 08:06:06Z

0

Don't reinvent the wheel. Here you have a highlight plugin that deals with that problem:

http://johannburkard.de/blog/programming/javascript/highlight-javascript-text-higlighting-jquery-plugin.html

Hope it helps. Cheers, from La Paz, Bolivia

answered Dec 30, 2013 at 8:06

Edgar Villegas Alvarado

18.4k2 gold badges45 silver badges61 bronze badges

1 Comment

imdadhusen Over a year ago

thanks for your answer, but i can not use this library due to some reason. can you help me to improve my answer

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