Fastest method to replace all instances of a character in a string

Question

What is the fastest way to replace all instances of a string/character in a string in JavaScript? A while, a for-loop, a regular expression?

Answer 1

The easiest would be to use a regular expression with g flag to replace all instances:

str.replace(/foo/g, "bar")

This will replace all occurrences of foo with bar in the string str. If you just have a string, you can convert it to a RegExp object like this:

var pattern = "foobar",
    re = new RegExp(pattern, "g");

Answer 2

Try this replaceAll: http://dumpsite.com/forum/index.php?topic=4.msg8#msg8

String.prototype.replaceAll = function(str1, str2, ignore) 
{
    return this.replace(new RegExp(str1.replace(/([\/\,\!\\\^\$\{\}\[\]\(\)\.\*\+\?\|\<\>\-\&])/g,"\\$&"),(ignore?"gi":"g")),(typeof(str2)=="string")?str2.replace(/\$/g,"$$$$"):str2);
} 

It is very fast, and it will work for ALL these conditions that many others fail on:

"x".replaceAll("x", "xyz");
// xyz

"x".replaceAll("", "xyz");
// xyzxxyz

"aA".replaceAll("a", "b", true);
// bb

"Hello???".replaceAll("?", "!");
// Hello!!!

Let me know if you can break it, or you have something better, but make sure it can pass these 4 tests.

Answer 3

var mystring = 'This is a string';
var newString = mystring.replace(/i/g, "a");

newString now is 'Thas as a strang'

Answer 4

Also you can try:

string.split('foo').join('bar');

Answer 5

You can use the following:

newStr = str.replace(/[^a-z0-9]/gi, '_');

or

newStr = str.replace(/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/g, '_');

This is going to replace all the character that are not letter or numbers to ('_'). Simple change the underscore value for whatever you want to replace it.

Answer 6

Use Regex object like this

var regex = new RegExp('"', 'g'); str = str.replace(regex, '\'');

It will replace all occurrence of " into '.

Answer 7

Just thinking about it from a speed issue I believe the case sensitive example provided in the link above would be by far the fastest solution.

var token = "\r\n";
var newToken = " ";
var oldStr = "This is a test\r\nof the emergency broadcasting\r\nsystem.";
newStr = oldStr.split(token).join(newToken);

newStr would be "This is a test of the emergency broadcast system."

Answer 8

I think the real answer is that it completely depends on what your inputs look like. I created a JsFiddle to try a bunch of these and a couple of my own against various inputs. No matter how I look at the results, I see no clear winner.

• RegExp wasn't the fastest in any of the test cases, but it wasn't bad either.
• Split/Join approach seems fastest for sparse replacements.

• This one I wrote seems fastest for small inputs and dense replacements:

  function replaceAllOneCharAtATime(inSource, inToReplace, inReplaceWith) {
      var output="";
      var firstReplaceCompareCharacter = inToReplace.charAt(0);
      var sourceLength = inSource.length;
      var replaceLengthMinusOne = inToReplace.length - 1;
      for(var i = 0; i < sourceLength; i++){
          var currentCharacter = inSource.charAt(i);
          var compareIndex = i;
          var replaceIndex = 0;
          var sourceCompareCharacter = currentCharacter;
          var replaceCompareCharacter = firstReplaceCompareCharacter;
          while(true){
              if(sourceCompareCharacter != replaceCompareCharacter){
              output += currentCharacter;
              break;
          }
          if(replaceIndex >= replaceLengthMinusOne) {
              i+=replaceLengthMinusOne;
              output += inReplaceWith;
              //was a match
              break;
          }
          compareIndex++; replaceIndex++;
          if(i >= sourceLength){
              // not a match
              break;
          }
          sourceCompareCharacter = inSource.charAt(compareIndex)
              replaceCompareCharacter = inToReplace.charAt(replaceIndex);
          }   
          replaceCompareCharacter += currentCharacter;
      }
      return output;
  }
  

Answer 9

I just coded a benchmark and tested the first 3 answers. It seems that for short strings (<500 characters)
the third most voted answer is faster than the second most voted one.

For long strings (add ".repeat(300)" to the test string) the faster is answer 1 followed by the second and the third.

Note:

The above is true for browsers using v8 engine (chrome/chromium etc).
With firefox (SpiderMonkey engine) the results are totally different
Check for yourselves!! Firefox with the third solution seems to be
more than 4.5 times faster than Chrome with the first solution... crazy :D

function log(data) {
  document.getElementById("log").textContent += data + "\n";
}

benchmark = (() => {

  time_function = function(ms, f, num) {
    var z;
    var t = new Date().getTime();
    for (z = 0;
      ((new Date().getTime() - t) < ms); z++) f(num);
    return (z / ms)
  } // returns how many times the function was run in "ms" milliseconds.


  function benchmark() {
    function compare(a, b) {
      if (a[1] > b[1]) {
        return -1;
      }
      if (a[1] < b[1]) {
        return 1;
      }
      return 0;
    }

    // functions

    function replace1(s) {
      s.replace(/foo/g, "bar")
    }

String.prototype.replaceAll2 = function(_f, _r){ 

  var o = this.toString();
  var r = '';
  var s = o;
  var b = 0;
  var e = -1;
//      if(_c){ _f = _f.toLowerCase(); s = o.toLowerCase(); }

  while((e=s.indexOf(_f)) > -1)
  {
    r += o.substring(b, b+e) + _r;
    s = s.substring(e+_f.length, s.length);
    b += e+_f.length;
  }

  // Add Leftover
  if(s.length>0){ r+=o.substring(o.length-s.length, o.length); }

  // Return New String
  return r;
};

String.prototype.replaceAll = function(str1, str2, ignore) {
      return this.replace(new RegExp(str1.replace(/([\/\,\!\\\^\$\{\}\[\]\(\)\.\*\+\?\|\<\>\-\&])/g, "\\$&"), (ignore ? "gi" : "g")), (typeof(str2) == "string") ? str2.replace(/\$/g, "$$$$") : str2);
    }

    function replace2(s) {
      s.replaceAll("foo", "bar")
    }

    function replace3(s) {
      s.split('foo').join('bar');
    }

    function replace4(s) {
      s.replaceAll2("foo", "bar")
    }


    funcs = [
      [replace1, 0],
      [replace2, 0],
      [replace3, 0],
      [replace4, 0]
    ];

    funcs.forEach((ff) => {
      console.log("Benchmarking: " + ff[0].name);
      ff[1] = time_function(2500, ff[0], "foOfoobarBaR barbarfoobarf00".repeat(10));
      console.log("Score: " + ff[1]);

    })
    return funcs.sort(compare);
  }

  return benchmark;
})()
log("Starting benchmark...\n");
res = benchmark();
console.log("Winner: " + res[0][0].name + " !!!");
count = 1;
res.forEach((r) => {
  log((count++) + ". " + r[0].name + " score: " + Math.floor(10000 * r[1] / res[0][1]) / 100 + ((count == 2) ? "% *winner*" : "% speed of winner.") + " (" + Math.round(r[1] * 100) / 100 + ")");
});
log("\nWinner code:\n");
log(res[0][0].toString());

<textarea rows="50" cols="80" style="font-size: 16; resize:none; border: none;" id="log"></textarea>

The test will run for 10s (+2s) as you click the button.

My results (on the same pc):

Chrome/Linux Ubuntu 64:
1. replace1 score: 100% *winner* (766.18)
2. replace4 score: 99.07% speed of winner. (759.11)
3. replace3 score: 68.36% speed of winner. (523.83)
4. replace2 score: 59.35% speed of winner. (454.78)

Firefox/Linux Ubuntu 64
1. replace3 score: 100% *winner* (3480.1)
2. replace1 score: 13.06% speed of winner. (454.83)
3. replace4 score: 9.4% speed of winner. (327.42)
4. replace2 score: 4.81% speed of winner. (167.46)

Nice mess uh?

Took the liberty of adding more test results

Chrome/Windows 10
1. replace1 score: 100% *winner* (742.49)
2. replace4 score: 85.58% speed of winner. (635.44)
3. replace2 score: 54.42% speed of winner. (404.08)
4. replace3 score: 50.06% speed of winner. (371.73)

Firefox/Windows 10
1. replace3 score: 100% *winner* (2645.18)
2. replace1 score: 30.77% speed of winner. (814.18)
3. replace4 score: 22.3% speed of winner. (589.97)
4. replace2 score: 12.51% speed of winner. (331.13)

Edge/Windows 10
1. replace1 score: 100% *winner* (1251.24)
2. replace2 score: 46.63% speed of winner. (583.47)
3. replace3 score: 44.42% speed of winner. (555.92)
4. replace4 score: 20% speed of winner. (250.28)

Chrome on Galaxy Note 4

1. replace4 score: 100% *winner* (99.82)
2. replace1 score: 91.04% speed of winner. (90.88)
3. replace3 score: 70.27% speed of winner. (70.15)
4. replace2 score: 38.25% speed of winner. (38.18)

Answer 10

What's the fastest I don't know, but I know what's the most readable - that what's shortest and simplest. Even if it's a little bit slower than other solution it's worth to use.

So use:

 "string".replace("a", "b");
 "string".replace(/abc?/g, "def");

And enjoy good code instead of faster (well... 1/100000 sec. is not a difference) and ugly one. ;)

Answer 11

I tried a number of these suggestions after realizing that an implementation I had written of this probably close to 10 years ago actually didn't work completely (nasty production bug in an long-forgotten system, isn't that always the way?!)... what I noticed is that the ones I tried (I didn't try them all) had the same problem as mine, that is, they wouldn't replace EVERY occurrence, only the first, at least for my test case of getting "test....txt" down to "test.txt" by replacing ".." with "."... maybe I missed so regex situation? But I digress...

So, I rewrote my implementation as follows. It's pretty darned simple, although I suspect not the fastest but I also don't think the difference will matter with modern JS engines, unless you're doing this inside a tight loop of course, but that's always the case for anything...

function replaceSubstring(inSource, inToReplace, inReplaceWith) {

  var outString = inSource;
  while (true) {
    var idx = outString.indexOf(inToReplace);
    if (idx == -1) {
      break;
    }
    outString = outString.substring(0, idx) + inReplaceWith +
      outString.substring(idx + inToReplace.length);
  }
  return outString;

}

Hope that helps someone!

Answer 12

// Find, Replace, Case
// i.e "Test to see if this works? (Yes|No)".replaceAll('(Yes|No)', 'Yes!');
// i.e.2 "Test to see if this works? (Yes|No)".replaceAll('(yes|no)', 'Yes!', true);
String.prototype.replaceAll = function(_f, _r, _c){ 

  var o = this.toString();
  var r = '';
  var s = o;
  var b = 0;
  var e = -1;
  if(_c){ _f = _f.toLowerCase(); s = o.toLowerCase(); }

  while((e=s.indexOf(_f)) > -1)
  {
    r += o.substring(b, b+e) + _r;
    s = s.substring(e+_f.length, s.length);
    b += e+_f.length;
  }

  // Add Leftover
  if(s.length>0){ r+=o.substring(o.length-s.length, o.length); }

  // Return New String
  return r;
};

Answer 13

Use the replace() method of the String object.

As mentioned in the selected answer, the /g flag should be used in the regex, in order to replace all instances of the substring in the string.

Answer 14

@Gumbo adding extra answer - user.email.replace(/foo/gi,"bar");

/foo/g - Refers to the all string to replace matching the case sensitive

/foo/gi - Refers to the without case sensitive and replace all For Eg: (Foo, foo, FoO, fOO)

DEMO