Pushing each word to an array

Question

If I had a string of text, how would I convert that string into an array of each of the individual words in the string?

Something like:

var wordArray = [];
var words = 'never forget to empty your vacuum bags';

for ( //1 ) {
  wordArray.push( //2 );
}

1. go through every word in the string named words
2. push that word to the array

This would create the following array:

var wordArray = ['never','forget','to','empty','your','vacuum','bags'];

Answer 1

Don't iterate, just use split() which returns an array:

let words = 'never forget to empty your vacuum bags',
  wordArray = words.split(' ');

console.log(wordArray);

JS Fiddle demo.

And, using String.prototype.split() with the regular expression suggested by @jfriend00 (in comments, below):

let words = 'never forget to empty your vacuum bags',
  wordArray = words.split(/\s+/);

console.log(wordArray);

References:

• Regular Expressions.
• String.prototype.split().

Answer 2

Here's a possible rephrased version (non-regex):

An alternative solution that doesn't involve regular expressions could be considered.

let words = '     practice   makes   perfect  ',
  wordArray = words.split(' ').filter(w => w !== '');

console.log(wordArray);

or just use String.prototype.match()

let words = '     practice   makes   perfect  ',
  wordArray = words.match(/\S+/g);

console.log(wordArray);

Answer 3

If you wanted to iterate through the array use:

let wordArray = [];
let words = 'never forget to empty your vacuum bags';

let wordsSplit = words.split(" ");
for(let i=0;i<wordsSplit.length;i++) {
    wordArray.push(wordsSplit[i])
}

But it would make more sense to not iterate and just use:

let words = 'never forget to empty your vacuum bags';
let arrOfWords = words.split(" ")

Answer 4

Try below, it will help.

var wordArray = [];
var words = 'never forget to empty your vacuum bags';
wordArray = words.match(/\b[-?(\w+)?]+\b/gi);
console.log(wordArray)

Answer 5

I've tested out many methods from StackOverflow and other websites. The method that works for the majority of cases is the following:

function stringToArrayOfWords(str) {
    return str.split(' ').filter(w => w !== '')
}