Replacing all occurrences of a string that contains special chars in javascript

Question

I want to replace all the occurrences of a string in javascript;

In my search text I have special chars and I cant escape them;

I need to replace the ${wid} text with the given string;

I have this function:

    function replaceAll(find, replace, str) {
        return str.replace(new RegExp(find, 'g'), replace);
    }

that should do the job;

var inner_code = replaceAll('/\$\{wid\}/', 'id_' + widget.model_attributes.id, widget.code);

widget.model_attributes.id is a positive integer number

widget.code is:

<div id="code_50"><div id="${wid}"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
    $("#${wid}").text("hello world");
</script></div>

p.s: this is not a duplicate question; i don't know how to escape special chars using JS

possible duplicate of [Replacing all occurrences of a string in javascript?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1144783/replacing-all-occurrences-of-a-string-in-javascript) — emerson.marini, Jan 08 '14 at 08:54
it is not a duplicate ! it is a problem and i don't understand it — Ionut Flavius Pogacian, Jan 08 '14 at 08:55
The regex constructor takes a string, so you have to double-escape all special characters, simply use a regex literal. — elclanrs, Jan 08 '14 at 08:59

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 08 '14 at 09:02

You need to escape the backslash itself. Try:

replaceAll('\\$\\{wid\\}', 'id_' + ...)

You are writing a JavaScript string literal. You want the string content to be "\$\{wid\}", because that is the RegExp source code you want. Since backslash means something in string literals, you need to escape it (by putting another backslash in front of it).

I would recommend not using the replaceAll function, and just writing:

var inner_code = widget.code.replace(/\$\{wid\}/g, 'id_' + widget.model_attributes.id);

That allows you to keep the RegExp as a RegExp literal, which is much easier to read than going through a string literal and the RegExp constructor.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 08 '14 at 09:02

You are not creating your regexp correctly. Use a literal expression:

function replaceAll(find, replace, str) {
    return str.replace(new RegExp(find), replace);
}
var inner_code = replaceAll(/\${wid}/g, 'id_' + widget.model_attributes.id, widget.code);

Replacing all occurrences of a string that contains special chars in javascript

2 Answers2