Strip all non-numeric characters from string in JavaScript

Question

Consider a non-DOM scenario where you'd want to remove all non-numeric characters from a string using JavaScript/ECMAScript. Any characters that are in range 0 - 9 should be kept.

var myString = 'abc123.8<blah>';

//desired output is 1238

How would you achieve this in plain JavaScript? Please remember this is a non-DOM scenario, so jQuery and other solutions involving browser and keypress events aren't suitable.

csj · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-01T19:56:46.377

1941

Use the string's .replace method with a regex of \D, which is a shorthand character class that matches all non-digits:

myString = myString.replace(/\D/g,'');

edited Dec 01 '14 at 19:56

answered Dec 07 '09 at 19:14

csj

21,818
2
20
26

10

Thanks csj; anyplace to find more info on `\D` ? – p.campbell Dec 07 '09 at 19:55
43

This is my default regex reference: http://www.regular-expressions.info/reference.html The built-in character classes each have built-in complements. \d \D (digits versus everything but digits) \w \W (word charcters versus everything but word characters) \s \S (whitespace versus everything but whitespace) – csj Dec 07 '09 at 20:38
6

Just to be clear, here is the syntax for replace: http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_obj_regexp.asp because the forward slashes and the "g" are part of that command, not part of the RegEx. – Mike K Feb 09 '11 at 00:17
2

does `replace` work with this exact syntax in all browsers? seems like I remember getting an `object has no method 'replace' ` in an older version of IE when using this with text I grabbed with jQuery... or something like that. – cwd Feb 07 '13 at 21:39
2

@cwd I have no idea what has been supported in past or current browsers. The question specified a non-DOM context, so it's likely that the poster was scripting in a non web browser environment. – csj Feb 25 '13 at 23:15
1

Great tool to test regular expression online (It's not mine :)). https://regex101.com – Madura Pradeep May 03 '16 at 10:24
1

i tried following but nothing worked "this.value = this.value.replace(eval(!/^[A-Za-z\d.#-,]$/),'')" "this.value = this.value.replace(eval(/^[A-Za-z\d.#-,]$/),'')" "this.value = this.value.replace(eval(specialCharRegex),'')" what should i do? – Zaveed Abbasi Feb 16 '18 at 16:31
1

You can use `String(myString).replace(/\D/g,'')` in case they pass only a number this code won't throw an error. – brycejl May 13 '20 at 05:18
1

this works fine for positive integers but goodbye negative numbers. – skilleo Aug 23 '21 at 21:54
2

This turns `1.2` into `12` – adamdport Feb 09 '22 at 15:02
@skilleo fair enough, but the OP did eventually edit their question to indicate that they were seeking to preserve the digits themselves. 0-9 – csj Apr 06 '22 at 21:39
@adamdport The OP's example specifically shows a period being stripped away. – csj Apr 06 '22 at 21:40

max4ever · Answer 2 · 2013-02-04T17:13:33.977

472

If you need this to leave the dot for float numbers, use this

var s = "-12345.50 €".replace(/[^\d.-]/g, ''); // gives "-12345.50"

edited Feb 04 '13 at 17:13

answered Feb 23 '12 at 09:05

max4ever

11,909
13
77
115

12

Any regexp experts? How to make this allow only a single dot (very relevant with numbers). Thanks! – Kasperi Oct 21 '14 at 14:48
1

what do you mean? give input and output example – max4ever Oct 23 '14 at 12:51
1

I mean, it currently accepts for example "1..56" and "1.5.28", right? Is it possible to make it accept only numbers with a single dot, such as "1.56"? – Kasperi Oct 24 '14 at 14:19
1

use http://stackoverflow.com/a/16951568/579646 to test it like this: new RegExp(/^-?\d+\.?\d*$/).test("1.5.28") – max4ever Oct 24 '14 at 16:10
1

Is that possible to change all `,` by `.` in your regex? In some countries, the comma is used as a separator instead of the point. :) – Mistalis Jul 12 '16 at 12:22
@Mistalis it is, but be aware, in such cases there is possibilty they are both there (Eg. 1,000,000.5) - so you should rather do .replace(/",","."/g) first :) – jave.web Dec 02 '16 at 19:26
1

@max4ever Whats with the "`-`" in the regexp? – jave.web Dec 02 '16 at 19:26
3

Not good: `"aaa 2.9px of bbb.".replace(/[^\d.-]/g, '')` → `2.9.` Should strip any String which might surround a Number.. – vsync Jun 05 '17 at 12:54
Great test! my first idea is [^\d.-]+[^\d]+ should work in this case – max4ever Jun 05 '17 at 16:23
3

@max4ever you saved my life, thanks for handling `-`(negative) number case :) – Pankaj Parkar Nov 30 '17 at 17:14
6

@Kasperi perhaps: `parseFloat("-1234.5.50 €".replace(/[^\d.-]/g, ''))` – A. Genedy Feb 10 '18 at 19:51
Great answer, if you want a numeric field you mean any number event floats :) – servatj Sep 01 '18 at 15:29

score 81 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 07 '09 at 19:03

81

Use a regular expression, if your script implementation supports them. Something like:

myString.replace(/[^0-9]/g, '');

answered Dec 07 '09 at 19:03

Auraseer

1,245
8
14

25

For some reason this way seems much more readable than [^\d]. – Arman Bimatov Sep 29 '13 at 05:48
1

whats the g for after the regex delimiter?? – Native Coder May 03 '17 at 19:57
3

@NativeCoder https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12993629/what-is-the-meaning-of-the-g-flag-in-regular-expressions – RagnaRock Nov 10 '17 at 11:23
1

will not work for float/decimal values for example, "7.6$" will return 76 – Sikandar Tariq Dec 10 '20 at 12:58
1

like @SikandarTariq mentioned but also negative values. – skilleo Aug 23 '21 at 21:57

score 36 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 07 '09 at 19:02

36

You can use a RegExp to replace all the non-digit characters:

var myString = 'abc123.8<blah>';
myString = myString.replace(/[^\d]/g, ''); // 1238

answered Dec 07 '09 at 19:02

Christian C. Salvadó

807,428
183
922
838

score 32 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 07 '09 at 19:01

32

Something along the lines of:

yourString = yourString.replace ( /[^0-9]/g, '' );

answered Dec 07 '09 at 19:01

Jan Hančič

53,269
16
95
99

18

Not exactly an answer to the original question, but a version to handle the decimal point: `yourString = yourString.replace ( /[^0-9.]/g, '' );` – Maxim Mai Jul 05 '16 at 17:26
1

Late to the party but also need dash and comma. In certain regions decimal is done with a comma: `replace(/[^0-9.,-]/g, ''` – Abdul Sadik Yalcin Mar 19 '22 at 00:12

jackosaur · Answer 6 · 2020-05-28T20:07:06.580

29

Short function to remove all non-numeric characters but keep the decimal (and return the number):

parseNum = str => +str.replace(/[^.\d]/g, '');
let str = 'a1b2c.d3e';
console.log(parseNum(str));

edited May 28 '20 at 20:07

answered May 28 '20 at 00:15

jackosaur

285
4
6

For me, this is better than the accepted answer, because it keeps the decimal. – Stefan Feb 26 '21 at 12:30
1

You might want to add "-" as well because the number can be negative as well. – Mob_Abominator Feb 27 '21 at 18:39
...but only if `-` is the first character – SherylHohman Oct 27 '21 at 21:37

score 4 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 30 '20 at 15:03

In Angular / Ionic / VueJS -- I just came up with a simple method of:

stripNaN(txt: any) {
    return txt.toString().replace(/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/g, "");
}

Usage on the view:

<a [href]="'tel:'+stripNaN(single.meta['phone'])" [innerHTML]="stripNaN(single.meta['phone'])"></a>

score 4 · Answer 8 · answered Jun 12 '22 at 21:16

The problem with these answers above, is that it assumes whole numbers. But if you need a floating point value, then the previous reg string will remove the decimal point.

To correct this you need write a negated character class with ^

var mystring = mystring.replace(/[^0-9.]/g, '');

Kamil Kiełczewski · Answer 9 · 2019-08-25T08:23:24.607

2

try

myString.match(/\d/g).join``

var myString = 'abc123.8<blah>'
console.log( myString.match(/\d/g).join`` );

edited Aug 25 '19 at 08:23

answered Apr 24 '19 at 10:30

Kamil Kiełczewski

85,173
29
368
345

how does this work? – 1252748 Dec 11 '22 at 02:48
@1252748 match will filter all digits and put them into array, join will glue array elements into single string – Kamil Kiełczewski Dec 11 '22 at 19:37
i meant the join with the backticks. what's going on there? – 1252748 Dec 16 '22 at 20:39
@1252748 read about: `js tagged templates` – Kamil Kiełczewski Dec 16 '22 at 21:25
Yeah I've seen tagged templates, just don't understand what is going on with join using them. Is this just saving two characters, invoking join with a single argument `""`? – 1252748 Dec 20 '22 at 03:32

score 2 · Answer 10 · answered May 26 '20 at 07:16

Unfortunately none of the answers above worked for me.

I was looking to convert currency numbers from strings like $123,232,122.11 (1232332122.11) or USD 123,122.892 (123122.892) or any currency like ₹ 98,79,112.50 (9879112.5) to give me a number output including the decimal pointer.

Had to make my own regex which looks something like this:

str = str.match(/\d|\./g).join('');

score 1 · Answer 11 · edited May 25 '23 at 10:39

1

This,

.match(/\d|\.|\-/g).join('');

Handles both , and . also -

Example:

"Balance -$100,00.50".match(/\d|\.|\-/g).join('');

Outputs

-10000.50

edited May 25 '23 at 10:39

Andrea Lazzarotto

2,471
1
22
38

answered Nov 21 '21 at 00:43

jeffbRTC

1,941
10
29

score -6 · Answer 12 · answered Jul 09 '17 at 09:04

-6

we are in 2017 now you can also use ES2016

var a = 'abc123.8<blah>';
console.log([...a].filter( e => isFinite(e)).join(''));

or

console.log([...'abc123.8<blah>'].filter( e => isFinite(e)).join(''));

The result is

answered Jul 09 '17 at 09:04

Frank Wisniewski

1,182
8
7

14

This is a very inefficient way to go about this operation. – djheru Aug 10 '17 at 16:02
6

It converts the string into an array of single-character strings via a spare method, and then applies filter function over JavaScript on each array item, returning a new string array, to finally join that array back into a string. Regex takes a string and returns a string and the processing is done via native code. – ShortFuse Dec 18 '18 at 23:03

Strip all non-numeric characters from string in JavaScript

12 Answers12

Linked

Related