3

I have string like as "1 + 2 - 3 + 10". I want split it to "1", "+2", "-3", "+10".

Here is my code.

var expression = "1 + 2 - 3 + 10";
expression = expression.replace(/\s+/g, '');
let fields = expression.split(/([+-]\d+)/g);
console.log(fields);

But result is

["1", "+2", "", "-3", "", "+10", ""]

How can I make result ["1", "+2", "-3", "+10"]?

2 Answers 2

1

Your regular expression takes a group

/([+-]\d+)/
 ^       ^  group 

which is included in the result set.

as result you get for each following iteration two parts, the part previous from the group and the group itself.

"1"    first find
"+2"   group as separator for splitting, included to result set
 ""    second find, empty because of the found next separator
"-3"   second separator/group
""     third part without separator
"+10"  third separator
""     rest part between separator and end of string

You could split with a positive lookahead of an operator.

const
    string = '1 + 2 - 3 + 10',
    result = string.replace(/\s+/g, '').split(/(?=[+-])/);

console.log(result);

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2 Comments

thanks. it's working. Btw, what is wrong my code?
@Daniel.Wang The problem with your splitting logic is that you are splitting on both the symbol and number. This removes the symbol and number from the output, but you then place it in parentheses, capturing it, so it gets added back. Check this demo to understand what you did wrong. Nina's solution using a lookahead to assert, but not consume, the arithmetic symbol, so that it remains in the split array.
0

I would handle this by first stripping off all whitespace, then using match() with the regex pattern [/*+-]?\d+, which will match all digits, with an optional leading operator (not present for the first term).

var input = "1 + 2 - 3 + 10";
var matches = input.replace(/\s+/g, '').match(/[/*+-]?\d+/g);
console.log(matches);

5 Comments

It would be worth mentioning that .match will return null if no matches are found. eg: null === 'a'.match(/b/)
Which is better match vs split?
@Daniel.Wang I'm not sure it's a matter of which is "better," they are different approaches, choose the one that fits your situation best.
Thank you @Tim Biegeleisen, It seems better split in my case, because it returns array always.
@Daniel.Wang ... and my answer also returns an array :-)

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