String

The String global object is a constructor for strings or a sequence of characters.

Syntax

String literals take the forms:

'string text'
"string text"
"中文 español deutsch English हिन्दी العربية português বাংলা русский 日本語 ਪੰਜਾਬੀ 한국어 தமிழ் עברית"

Strings can also be created using the String global object directly:

String(thing)

Parameters

thing

Anything to be converted to a string.

Template literals

Starting with ECMAScript 2015, string literals can also be so-called Template literals:

`hello world`
`hello!
 world!`
`hello ${who}`
escape `<a>${who}</a>`

Escape notation

Besides regular, printable characters, special characters can be encoded using escape notation:

Long literal strings

Sometimes, your code will include strings which are very long. Rather than having lines that go on endlessly, or wrap at the whim of your editor, you may wish to specifically break the string into multiple lines in the source code without affecting the actual string contents. There are two ways you can do this.

You can use the + operator to append multiple strings together, like this:

let longString = "This is a very long string which needs " +
                 "to wrap across multiple lines because " +
                 "otherwise my code is unreadable.";

Or you can use the backslash character ("\") at the end of each line to indicate that the string will continue on the next line. Make sure there is no space or any other character after the backslash (except for a line break), or as an indent; otherwise it will not work. That form looks like this:

let longString = "This is a very long string which needs \
to wrap across multiple lines because \
otherwise my code is unreadable.";

Both of these result in identical strings being created.

Description

Strings are useful for holding data that can be represented in text form. Some of the most-used operations on strings are to check their length, to build and concatenate them using the + and += string operators, checking for the existence or location of substrings with the indexOf() method, or extracting substrings with the substring() method.

Character access

There are two ways to access an individual character in a string. The first is the charAt() method:

return 'cat'.charAt(1); // returns "a"

The other way (introduced in ECMAScript 5) is to treat the string as an array-like object, where individual characters correspond to a numerical index:

return 'cat'[1]; // returns "a"

For character access using bracket notation, attempting to delete or assign a value to these properties will not succeed. The properties involved are neither writable nor configurable. (See Object.defineProperty() for more information.)

Comparing strings

C developers have the strcmp() function for comparing strings. In JavaScript, you just use the less-than and greater-than operators:

var a = 'a';
var b = 'b';
if (a < b) { // true
  console.log(a + ' is less than ' + b);
} else if (a > b) {
  console.log(a + ' is greater than ' + b);
} else {
  console.log(a + ' and ' + b + ' are equal.');
}

A similar result can be achieved using the localeCompare() method inherited by String instances.

Distinction between string primitives and String objects

Note that JavaScript distinguishes between String objects and primitive string values. (The same is true of Boolean and Numbers.)

String literals (denoted by double or single quotes) and strings returned from String calls in a non-constructor context (i.e., without using the new keyword) are primitive strings. JavaScript automatically converts primitives to String objects, so that it's possible to use String object methods for primitive strings. In contexts where a method is to be invoked on a primitive string or a property lookup occurs, JavaScript will automatically wrap the string primitive and call the method or perform the property lookup.

var s_prim = 'foo';
var s_obj = new String(s_prim);

console.log(typeof s_prim); // Logs "string"
console.log(typeof s_obj);  // Logs "object"

String primitives and String objects also give different results when using eval(). Primitives passed to eval are treated as source code; String objects are treated as all other objects are, by returning the object. For example:

var s1 = '2 + 2';             // creates a string primitive
var s2 = new String('2 + 2'); // creates a String object
console.log(eval(s1));        // returns the number 4
console.log(eval(s2));        // returns the string "2 + 2"

For these reasons, the code may break when it encounters String objects when it expects a primitive string instead, although generally, authors need not worry about the distinction.

A String object can always be converted to its primitive counterpart with the valueOf() method.

console.log(eval(s2.valueOf())); // returns the number 4

Properties

String.prototype

Allows the addition of properties to a String object.

Methods

String.fromCharCode()

Returns a string created by using the specified sequence of Unicode values.

String.fromCodePoint()

Returns a string created by using the specified sequence of code points.

String.raw()

Returns a string created from a raw template string.

String generic methods

The String instance methods are also available in Firefox as of JavaScript 1.6 (not part of the ECMAScript standard) on the String object for applying String methods to any object:

var num = 15;
console.log(String.replace(num, /5/, '2'));

For migrating away from String generics, see also Warning: String.x is deprecated; use String.prototype.x instead.

Generics are also available on Array methods.

String instances

Properties

String.prototype.constructor

Specifies the function that creates an object's prototype.

String.prototype.length

Reflects the length of the string.

N

Used to access the character in the Nth position where N is a positive integer between 0 and one less than the value of length. These properties are read-only.

Methods

Methods unrelated to HTML

String.prototype.charAt()

Returns the character (exactly one UTF-16 code unit) at the specified index.

String.prototype.charCodeAt()

Returns a number that is the UTF-16 code unit value at the given index.

String.prototype.codePointAt()

Returns a nonnegative integer Number that is the code point value of the UTF-16 encoded code point starting at the specified index.

String.prototype.concat()

Combines the text of two strings and returns a new string.

String.prototype.includes()

Determines whether one string may be found within another string.

String.prototype.endsWith()

Determines whether a string ends with the characters of another string.

String.prototype.indexOf()

Returns the index within the calling String object of the first occurrence of the specified value, or -1 if not found.

String.prototype.lastIndexOf()

Returns the index within the calling String object of the last occurrence of the specified value, or -1 if not found.

String.prototype.localeCompare()

Returns a number indicating whether a reference string comes before or after or is the same as the given string in sort order.

String.prototype.match()

Used to match a regular expression against a string.

String.prototype.normalize()

Returns the Unicode Normalization Form of the calling string value.

String.prototype.padEnd()

Pads the current string from the end with a given string to create a new string from a given length.

String.prototype.padStart()

Pads the current string from the start with a given string to create a new string from a given length.

String.prototype.quote()

Wraps the string in double quotes (""").

String.prototype.repeat()

Returns a string consisting of the elements of the object repeated the given times.

String.prototype.replace()

Used to find a match between a regular expression and a string, and to replace the matched substring with a new substring.

String.prototype.search()

Executes the search for a match between a regular expression and a specified string.

String.prototype.slice()

Extracts a section of a string and returns a new string.

String.prototype.split()

Splits a String object into an array of strings by separating the string into substrings.

String.prototype.startsWith()

Determines whether a string begins with the characters of another string.

String.prototype.substr()

Returns the characters in a string beginning at the specified location through the specified number of characters.

String.prototype.substring()

Returns the characters in a string between two indexes into the string.

String.prototype.toLocaleLowerCase()

The characters within a string are converted to lower case while respecting the current locale. For most languages, this will return the same as toLowerCase().

String.prototype.toLocaleUpperCase()

The characters within a string are converted to upper case while respecting the current locale. For most languages, this will return the same as toUpperCase().

String.prototype.toLowerCase()

Returns the calling string value converted to lower case.

String.prototype.toSource()

Returns an object literal representing the specified object; you can use this value to create a new object. Overrides the Object.prototype.toSource() method.

String.prototype.toString()

Returns a string representing the specified object. Overrides the Object.prototype.toString() method.

String.prototype.toUpperCase()

Returns the calling string value converted to uppercase.

String.prototype.trim()

Trims whitespace from the beginning and end of the string. Part of the ECMAScript 5 standard.

String.prototype.trimLeft()

Trims whitespace from the left side of the string.

String.prototype.trimRight()

Trims whitespace from the right side of the string.

String.prototype.valueOf()

Returns the primitive value of the specified object. Overrides the Object.prototype.valueOf() method.

String.prototype[@@iterator]()

Returns a new Iterator object that iterates over the code points of a String value, returning each code point as a String value.

HTML wrapper methods

These methods are of limited use, as they provide only a subset of the available HTML tags and attributes.

String.prototype.anchor()

<a name="name"> (hypertext target)

String.prototype.big()

<big>

String.prototype.blink()

<blink>

String.prototype.bold()

<b>

String.prototype.fixed()

<tt>

String.prototype.fontcolor()

<font color="color">

String.prototype.fontsize()

<font size="size">

String.prototype.italics()

<i>

String.prototype.link()

<a href="url"> (link to URL)

String.prototype.small()

<small>

String.prototype.strike()

<strike>

String.prototype.sub()

<sub>

String.prototype.sup()

<sup>

Examples

String conversion

It's possible to use String as a more reliable toString() alternative, as it works when used on null, undefined, and on symbols. For example:

var outputStrings = [];
for (var i = 0, n = inputValues.length; i < n; ++i) {
  outputStrings.push(String(inputValues[i]));
}

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• DOMString
• StringView — a C-like representation of strings based on typed arrays
• Binary strings