Modern ES6+ Javascript Pt. 5

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Part 5 - Developer’s Guide: Built-in String Functions

Welcome back, In the previous article we covered an Intro about Strings and Template Strings, now this article and Part 6 will look to cover all the built-in String Properties and Methods within JavaScript. Please note that we will only cover those properties that are currently available within the working draft of ECMAScript.

Now believe it or not, Understanding these built-in methods/functions is the utmost important thing when it comes to programming in JavaScript. You would be using them a lot for generating the required data and even use them to create your own functions in JavaScript.

length

The length property is used to reflect the number of elements within a particular String value. Once the String object is initialized, this property is immutable.

str.length

Example

charAt()

The charAt() method is used to return a single element String containing the code unit at index position within a particular String value.

Characters within a string are indexed from left to right. Please note that the index of the first character is 0, and the index of the last character in a string called stringName is stringName.length - 1.

If the index you are supplying is out of range, it will return an empty string. If no index is provided, then 0 will be used as default value.

str.charAt(index)

Parameters

index

An integer between 0 and 1-less-than the length of the string. If no index is provided, charAt() will use 0.

Example

let goodParts = 'JavaScript, The Good Parts!';
console.log("The character at index 0   is '" + goodParts.charAt()   + "'"); 
// No index was provided, used 0 as default
console.log("The character at index 0   is '" + goodParts.charAt(0)   + "'");
console.log("The character at index 1   is '" + goodParts.charAt(1)   + "'");
console.log("The character at index 2   is '" + goodParts.charAt(2)   + "'");
console.log("The character at index 3   is '" + goodParts.charAt(3)   + "'");
console.log("The character at index 4   is '" + goodParts.charAt(4)   + "'");
console.log("The character at index 999 is '" + goodParts.charAt(999) + "'");
// This will print blank '' as there isn't a index 999 within this String.

charCodeAt()

The charCodeAt() method is used to return a non-negative integer between 0 and 65535 (2^16 - 1) representing the UTF-16 code unit at the given index. If there is no element at that index, the result is NaN.

keycodes.atjayjo.com is a great website for getting character code for regular keyboard inputs.

Note that the charCodeAt() function is intentionally generic. It does not require that its this value be a String object. Thus, it can be transferred to other kinds of objects for use as a method.

str.charCodeAt(index)

Parameters

index

An integer greater than or equal to 0 and less than the length of the string; if it is not a number, it defaults to 0.

Example

codePointAt()

Added in ECMAScript 6, It is used to return a non-negative integer that is less than 0x110000, the code point value of the UTF-16 encoded code point starting at the string element at index position within the String. If there is no element at the specified position, undefined is returned.

Same like charCodeAt(), the codePointAt() function is also intentionally generic. It does not require that its this value be a String object. Thus, it can be transferred to other kinds of objects for use as a method.

The whole list of the unicode characters can be found here. Don’t worry, just keep it as reference, you don’t need to memorise them.

str.codePointAt(pos)

Parameters

pos

Position of an element in the String to return the code point value from.

Example

As this method is added in ECMAScript 6 and thus is not supported in all web browsers or environments. You can use this code as a polyfill.

fromCharCode()

The fromCharCode() method is used to return a string that is created by using the specified sequence of Unicode values. As, fromCharCode() is a static method of String, you can always use it as String.fromCharCode(), rather than as a method of a String object you have created.

String.fromCharCode(num1[, ...[, numN]])

Parameters

num1, ..., num*N*

A sequence of numbers that are Unicode values.

Example

fromCodePoint()

Added in ECMAScript 6, fromCodePoint() method is used to return a string that is created by using the specified sequence of code points. Please note that this method returns a string and not the String object.

String.fromCodePoint(num1[, ...[, numN]])

Parameters

num1, ..., numN

A sequence of code points.

Example

console.log(String.fromCodePoint(65));       //=> A
console.log(String.fromCodePoint(72, 89));   //=> HY
console.log(String.fromCodePoint(0x404));    //=> \u0404
console.log(String.fromCodePoint(0x2F804));  //=> \uD87E\uDC04
console.log(String.fromCodePoint(194564));   //=> \uD87E\uDC04
console.log(String.fromCodePoint(0x1D306, 0x61, 0x1D307)); 
//=> \uD834\uDF06a\uD834\uDF07

All the below code will produce RangeError. A RangeError is thrown if an invalid Unicode code point is given.

As this method is added in ECMAScript 6 and thus is not supported in all web browsers or environments. You can use this code as a polyfill.

concat()

The concat() method is used to combines the text of two strings and returns a new string. Please note that the result is a String value, and not a String object.

The concat() function is intentionally generic. It does not require that its this value be a String object. Thus, it can be transferred to other kinds of objects for use as a method.

It is strongly been recommended that assignment operators (+, +=) should be used instead of the concat() method. See this performance test.

str.concat(string2[, string3, ..., stringN])

Parameters

string2...stringN

Strings to concatenate to this string.

Example

endsWith()

This method is used to determine whether the string ends with the characters of another string, returning true or false as appropriate. This method is case-sensitive.

str.endsWith(searchString[, length])

Parameters

searchString

The characters to be searched for at the end of this string.

length

Optional. If provided overwrites the considered length of the string to search in. If omitted, the default value is the length of the string.

Example

includes()

The includes() method is used to determine whether one string may be found within another string, returning true or false as appropriate. This method is case-sensitive.

arr.includes(searchElement, fromIndex)

Parameters

searchElement

The element to search for.

fromIndex

Optional. The position in this array at which to begin searching for searchElement. A negative value searches from the index of array.length + fromIndex by asc. Defaults to 0.

Example

let question2 = 'To be, or not to be, that is the question.';
    
console.log(question2.includes('To be'));       //=> true
console.log(question2.includes('question'));    //=> true
console.log(question2.includes('nonexistent')); //=> false
console.log(question2.includes('To be', 1));    //=> false
console.log(question2.includes('TO BE'));       //=> false

indexOf()

It is used to return an index within the calling String object of the first occurrence of the specified value, starting the search at fromIndex. Returns -1 if the value is not found.

Characters in a string are indexed from left to right. The index of the first character is 0, and the index of the last character of a string called stringName is stringName.length - 1.

The indexOf() function is intentionally generic. It does not require that its this value be a String object. Thus, it can be transferred to other kinds of objects for use as a method.

The indexOf() method is case sensitive.

str.indexOf(searchValue[, fromIndex])

Parameters

searchValue

A string representing the value to search for.

fromIndex

An integer representing the index at which to start the search; the default value is 0. If fromIndex <= 0 the entire string is searched. If fromIndex >= str.length, the string is not searched and -1 is returned. If searchValue is an empty string, the behaviour is as follows — if fromIndex < str.length, fromIndex is returned; if fromIndex >= str.length, str.length is returned.

Example

console.log('Harry Manchanda'.indexOf('Harry')); //=> returns  0
console.log('Harry Manchanda'.indexOf('Larry')); //=> returns -1
console.log('Harry Manchanda'.indexOf('Manchanda', 0)); //=> returns  6
console.log('Harry Manchanda'.indexOf('Manchanda', 6)); //=> returns  6
console.log('Harry Manchanda'.indexOf('Manchanda', 7)); //=> returns -1
console.log('Harry Manchanda'.indexOf(''));  //=> returns  0
console.log('Harry Manchanda'.indexOf('H')); //=> returns  0

lastIndexOf()

It is used to return an index within the calling String object of the first occurrence of the specified value, starting the search at fromIndex. Returns -1 if the value is not found.

Characters in a string are indexed from left to right. The index of the first character is 0, and the index of the last character of a string called stringName is stringName.length - 1.

The lastIndexOf() function is intentionally generic. It does not require that its this value be a String object. Thus, it can be transferred to other kinds of objects for use as a method.

The lastIndexOf() method is case sensitive.

str.lastIndexOf(searchValue[, fromIndex])

Parameters

searchValue

A string representing the value to search for. If searchValue is an empty string, then fromIndex is returned.

fromIndex

The index at which to start searching backwards in the string. Starting with this index, the left part of the string will be searched. It can be any integer. The default value is +Infinity. If fromIndex >= str.length, the whole string is searched. If fromIndex < 0, the behavior will be the same as if it would be 0.

Example

console.log('cena'.lastIndexOf('a'));     //=> returns 3
console.log('cena'.lastIndexOf('e', 2));  //=> returns 1
console.log('cena'.lastIndexOf('a', 0));  //=> returns -1
console.log('cena'.lastIndexOf('x'));     //=> returns -1
console.log('cena'.lastIndexOf('c', -5)); //=> returns 0
console.log('cena'.lastIndexOf('c', 0));  //=> returns 0
console.log('cena'.lastIndexOf(''));      //=> returns 4
console.log('cena'.lastIndexOf('', 2));   //=> returns 2

localeCompare()

It is used to return a number indicating whether the reference string comes before or after or is the same as the given string in sort order.

Note that the new locales and options arguments help applications to specify the language whose sort order should be used and customize the behavior of the function. In older implementations, which ignore the locales and options arguments, the locale and sort order used is entirely implementation dependent.

Please note that you shouldn't rely on exact return values of -1 or 1. The negative and positive integer results vary between browsers (as well as between browser versions) because the W3C specification only mandates negative and positive values. Some browsers may return -2 or 2 or even some other negative or positive value.

referenceStr.localeCompare(compareString[, locales[, options]])

Parameters

compareString

The string against which the referring string is compared

locales & options

Optional. Their usage, properties and Unicode extension keys can be found here.

Example

// The letter "a" is before "c" yielding a negative value
console.log('a'.localeCompare('c')); // -2 or -1 (or some other negative value)
// Alphabetically the word "check" comes after "against" yielding a positive value
console.log('check'.localeCompare('against')); // 2 or 1 (or some other positive value)
// "a" and "a" are equivalent yielding a neutral value of zero
console.log('a'.localeCompare('a')); // 0

Sort an array: localeCompare enables a case-insensitive sort of an array.

match()

This method is used to retrieve the matches when matching a string against a regular expression. Wait! Regular expression*?* Don’t worry we will cover that soon, just follow along for now.

str.match(regexp)

Parameters

regexp

A regular expression object. If a non-RegExp object obj is passed, it is implicitly converted to a RegExp by using new RegExp(obj). If you don't give any parameter and use the match() method directly, you will get an Array with an empty string:[""].

Example

This will log the code below:

[ 'see Chapter 3.4.5.1',
  'Chapter 3.4.5.1',
  '.1',
  index: 22,
  input: 'For more information, see Chapter 3.4.5.1' ]

Why?

'see Chapter 3.4.5.1' is the whole match.
'Chapter 3.4.5.1' was captured by '(chapter \d+(.\d)*)'.
'.1' was the last value captured by '(.\d)'.
The 'index' property (22) is the zero-based index of the whole match.
The 'input' property is the original string that was parsed.

normalize()

This method is used to retrieve the Unicode Normalization Form of a given string. If the value isn't a string, it will be converted to one first.

Yes, this one is very hard to understand, Unicode Normalization Form. Don't worry just keep it as reference if you are not understanding what it does. You don't need this method for regular daily use anyway so you can skip this one if you are finding it hard to understand.

str.normalize([form]);

Parameters

form

One of "NFC", "NFD", "NFKC", or "NFKD", specifying the Unicode Normalization Form. If omitted or undefined, "NFC" is used.

NFC — Normalization Form Canonical Composition.

NFD — Normalization Form Canonical Decomposition.

NFKC — Normalization Form Compatibility Composition.

NFKD — Normalization Form Compatibility Decomposition.

Example

// Initial string
// U+1E9B: LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S WITH DOT ABOVE
// U+0323: COMBINING DOT BELOW
let wow = '\u1E9B\u0323';
// Canonically-composed form (NFC)
// U+1E9B: LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S WITH DOT ABOVE
// U+0323: COMBINING DOT BELOW
console.log(wow.normalize('NFC')); //=> \u1E9B\u0323
// same as above
console.log(wow.normalize());      //=> \u1E9B\u0323
// Canonically-decomposed form (NFD)
// U+017F: LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S
// U+0323: COMBINING DOT BELOW
// U+0307: COMBINING DOT ABOVE
console.log(wow.normalize('NFD')); //=> \u017F\u0323\u0307
// Compatibly-composed (NFKC)
// U+1E69: LATIN SMALL LETTER S WITH DOT BELOW AND DOT ABOVE
console.log(wow.normalize('NFKC')); //=> \u1E69
// Compatibly-decomposed (NFKD)
// U+0073: LATIN SMALL LETTER S
// U+0323: COMBINING DOT BELOW
// U+0307: COMBINING DOT ABOVE
console.log(wow.normalize('NFKD')); //=> \u0073\u0323\u0307

Relax! Have a Break, To be continued…

Woah! All of this is hard to grasp at one go. Isn’t it?

Don’t worry, Relax… have a break, enjoy the day and when you feel fresh, we will visit Part 6 (coming soon), and cover rest of the String methods available.

References

This story has been proudly referenced from these links below:

Thanks a lot…

If you would like to hire me for your next cool project, or just want to say hello… my twitter handle is @harmanmanchanda for getting in touch with me! My DM’s are open to the public so just hit me up.

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Part 5 - Developer’s Guide: Built-in String Functions

length

charAt()

charCodeAt()

codePointAt()

fromCharCode()

fromCodePoint()

concat()

endsWith()

includes()

indexOf()

lastIndexOf()

localeCompare()

match()

normalize()

Relax! Have a Break, To be continued…

References

Thanks a lot…

The State of CSS Specificity, Part 3

The State of CSS Specificity, Part 2

Exercice Javascript

JavaScript Array Methods