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Work with strings

A lot of code you write will involve dealing with chains of text characters - or strings. Let's look at how!

String recap

Let's recapitulate what we already know about strings:

  • A string value represents text.

  • In JavaScript, a string is defined by placing text within single quotes ('I am a string') or double quotes ("I am a string").

  • You may use special characters within a string by prefacing them with \ ("backslash") followed by another character. For example, use \n to add a line break.

  • The + operator concatenates (combines or adds) two or more strings.

Beyond these basic uses, strings have even more versatility.

Obtaining string length

To obtain the length of a string (the number of characters it contains), add .length to it. The length will be returned as an integer.

console.log("ABC".length); // 3
const str = "I am a string";
const len = str.length;
console.log(len); // 13

Although string values are primitive JavaScript types, some properties and methods can be applied to them just as if they were objects by using the dot notation. length is one of those properties.

Converting string case

You may convert a string's text to lowercase by calling the toLowerCase() method. Alternatively, you may do the same with toUpperCase() to convert a string to uppercase.

const originalWord = "Bora-Bora";

const lowercaseWord = originalWord.toLowerCase();
console.log(lowercaseWord); // "bora-bora"

const uppercaseWord = originalWord.toUpperCase();
console.log(uppercaseWord); // "BORA-BORA"

toLowerCase() and toUpperCase() are two string methods. Like every string method, both have no affect on the initial value and return a new string.

Tip

It's important to understand that once created, a string value never changes: strings are immutable in JavaScript.

Comparing two strings

You may compare two strings with the === operator. The operation returns a boolean value: true if the strings are equal, false if not.

const word = "koala";
console.log(word === "koala");    // true
console.log(word === "kangaroo"); // false

Warning

String comparison is case sensitive. Do indeed pay attention to your lower and uppercase letters!

console.log("Qwerty" === "qwerty");               // false
console.log("Qwerty".toLowerCase() === "qwerty"); // true

Strings as sets of characters

Identifying a particular character

You may think of a string as an array of characters. Each character is identified by a number called an index, just as it does for an array. The same golden rules apply:

  • The index of the first character in a string is 0, not 1.
  • The highest index number is the string's length minus 1.

Accessing a particular character

You know how to identify a character by its index. To access it, you use the brackets notation [] with the character index placed between the brackets.

Warning

Trying to access a string character beyond the string length produces an undefined result.

const sport = "basketball";
console.log(sport[0]);  // first "b"
console.log(sport[6]);  // second "b"
console.log(sport[10]); // undefined: last character is at index 9

Iterating over a string

Now what if you want to access all string characters one-by-one? You could access each letter individually, as seen above:

const name = "Sarah"; // 5 characters
console.log(name[0]); // "S"
console.log(name[1]); // "a"
console.log(name[2]); // "r"
console.log(name[3]); // "a"
console.log(name[4]); // "h"

This is impractical if your string contains more than a few characters. You need a better solution to repeat access to characters. Does the word "repeat" bring to mind a former concept? Loops, of course!

You may write a loop to access each character of a string. Generally speaking, a for loop is a better choice than a while loop, since we know the loop needs to run once for each character in the string.

for (let i = 0; i < myString.length; i++) {
    // Use myString[i] to access each character one by one
}

The loop counter i ranges from 0 (the index of the string's first character) to string length - 1 (index of the last character). When the counter value equals the string length, the expression becomes false and the loop ends.

So, the previous example may also be written with a for loop for an identical result.

const name = "Sarah";
for (let i = 0; i < name.length; i++) {
  console.log(name[i]);
}

As for arrays covered earlier, a recent JavaScript evolution has introduced yet another option to iterate over a string: the for-of loop. The previous example may also be written:

const name = "Sarah";
for (const letter of name) {
  console.log(letter);
}

If the index is not needed inside the loop, this syntax is arguably simpler than a standard for loop.

Turning a string into an array

The JavaScript method Array.from() can be used to turn a string into an array. This array can further be traversed with the forEach() method. Just like the previous ones, this example shows the string letters one-by-one.

const name = "Sarah";
const nameArray = Array.from(name);
nameArray.forEach(letter => {
  console.log(letter);
});

Searching inside a string

Looking for particular values inside a string is a common task.

The indexOf() method takes as a parameter the searched-for value. If that value is found inside the string, it returns the index of the first occurrence of the value. Otherwise, it returns -1.

const song = "Honky Tonk Women";
console.log(song.indexOf("onk")); // 1
console.log(song.indexOf("Onk")); // -1 because of case mismatch

When searching for a value at the beginning or end of a string, you may also use the startsWith() and endsWith() methods. Both return either true or false, depending on whether the value is found or not. Beware: these methods are case-sensitive.

const song = "Honky Tonk Women";

console.log(song.startsWith("Honk")); // true
console.log(song.startsWith("honk")); // false
console.log(song.startsWith("Tonk")); // false

console.log(song.endsWith("men")); // true
console.log(song.endsWith("Men")); // false
console.log(song.endsWith("Tonk")); // false

Breaking a string into parts

Sometimes a string is made of several parts separated by a particular value. In that case, it's easy to obtain the individual parts by using the split() method. This method takes as a parameter the separator and returns an array containing the parts.

const monthList = "Jan,Feb,Mar,Apr,May,Jun,Jul,Aug,Sep,Oct,Nov,Dec";
const months = monthList.split(",");
console.log(months[0]);  // "Jan"
console.log(months[11]); // "Dec"

TL;DR

  • Although string values are primitive JavaScript types, some properties and methods may be applied to them just as if they were objects.

  • The length property returns the number of characters of the string.

  • JavaScript strings are immutable: once created, a string value never changes. String methods never affect the initial value and always return a new string.

  • The toLowerCase() and toUpperCase() methods respectively return new converted strings to lower and upper case.

  • String values may be compared using the === operator, which is case sensitive.

  • A string may be seen as an array of characters identified by their index. The index of the first character is 0 (not 1).

  • You may iterate over a string using either a for or the newer for-of loop.

  • The Array.from() method can be used to turn a string into an array that can be traversed letter by letter with the forEach() method.

  • Searching for values inside a string is possible with the indexOf(), startsWith() and endsWith() methods.

  • The split() method breaks a string into subparts delimited by a separator.

Coding time!

Word info

Write a program that asks you for a word then shows its length, lowercase, and uppercase values.

Vowel count

Improve the previous program so that it also shows the number of vowels inside the word.

Backwards word

Improve the previous program so that it shows the word written backwards.

Palindrome

Improve the previous program to check if the word is a palindrome. A palindrome is a word or sentence that's spelled the same way both forward and backward, ignoring punctuation, case, and spacing.

For example, "radar" should be detected as a palindrome, "Radar" too.