replace string literal

[gary]

How would one make the ECMA-262 String.replace method work with a
string literal?

For example, if my string was "HELLO[WORLD]" how would I make it work
in this instance.

Please note my square brackets are not regular expression syntax.

Thanks,

Gary

[Ian Collins]

gary wrote:

How would one make the ECMA-262 String.replace method work with a
string literal?

For example, if my string was "HELLO[WORLD]" how would I make it work
in this instance.

Please note my square brackets are not regular expression syntax.

Try

alert("hello".r eplace(/ll/i, 'jj') );

String literals are objects in JavaScript, unlike C.

--
Ian Collins.

[gary]

Thank you very much for the reply, however, this does not solve my
problem.

For example

var h = "he[ll]o";
var regx = new RegExp ( h , 'i' );
alert(h.replace (regx, 'jj') );

Displays "he[ll]o" and not "he[jj]o" which is what I want.

Gary

Ian Collins wrote:

gary wrote:

How would one make the ECMA-262 String.replace method work with a
string literal?

For example, if my string was "HELLO[WORLD]" how would I make it work
in this instance.

Please note my square brackets are not regular expression syntax.

Try

alert("hello".r eplace(/ll/i, 'jj') );

String literals are objects in JavaScript, unlike C.

--
Ian Collins.

[Ian Collins]

gary wrote:

Please don't top post!

Ian Collins wrote:

gary wrote:

How would one make the ECMA-262 String.replace method work with a
string literal?

For example, if my string was "HELLO[WORLD]" how would I make it work
in this instance.

Please note my square brackets are not regular expression syntax.

Try

alert("hello" .replace(/ll/i, 'jj') );

String literals are objects in JavaScript, unlike C.

Thank you very much for the reply, however, this does not solve my
problem.

For example

var h = "he[ll]o";
var regx = new RegExp ( h , 'i' );
alert(h.replace (regx, 'jj') );

Displays "he[ll]o" and not "he[jj]o" which is what I want.

Which is exactly what my example does. What are you attempting to do?

--
Ian Collins.

[Richard Cornford]

Ian Collins wrote:

gary wrote:

How would one make the ECMA-262 String.replace method work
with a string literal?

<snip> Try

alert("hello".r eplace(/ll/i, 'jj') );

String literals are objects in JavaScript, unlike C.

No they are not. String primitive and string objects are distinct in
javascript, and string literals define string primitives.

The above works because the dot operator implicitly type-converts its
left hand side operand into an object, so the above is implicitly
equivalent to:-

alert((new String("hello") ).replace(/ll/i, 'jj') );

Richard.

[Csaba Gabor]

Richard Cornford wrote:

Ian Collins wrote:

alert("hello".r eplace(/ll/i, 'jj') );

String literals are objects in JavaScript, unlike C.

No they are not. String primitive and string objects are distinct in
javascript, and string literals define string primitives.

The above works because the dot operator implicitly type-converts its
left hand side operand into an object, so the above is implicitly
equivalent to:-

alert((new String("hello") ).replace(/ll/i, 'jj') );

But perhaps you could clear something up for me. If I pass a string
object to a function (that may return an altered string), a reference
should be passed. So it would be more efficient, in general, to pass a
string object and have the function change the underlying string rather
than having to return the string, since returning means that the string
must be copied when there are no changes. My question is, how does one
change the string of the string object without bothering the reference?
I could always wrap the string in an array, but that doesn't seem like
it's in the right spirit.

Csaba Gabor from Vienna

In this non working example, I'd like the line in the function to
change the contents of the string object instead of changing the object
itself (which, as a result, won't be reflected in the caller).
var oStr = new String("example string")
function changeoStr (oStr) {
// possibly oStr.__parent__ or oStr.__proto__ could help?
// doesn't work. I'd just like the underlying string changed
oStr = "new string";
}
changeoStr(oStr );
alert (oStr); // I'd like the alert to show "new string"

[Richard Cornford]

Csaba Gabor wrote:

Richard Cornford wrote: <snip>

... . String primitive and string objects are distinct in
javascript, and string literals define string primitives.

<snip> ... . My question is, how does one change the string of the string
object without bothering the reference?

<snip>

Javascript does not have any means of changing the internal value of a
String object.

Richard.

[Ian Collins]

Richard Cornford wrote:

Ian Collins wrote:

gary wrote:

How would one make the ECMA-262 String.replace method work
with a string literal?

<snip>

Try

alert("hello" .replace(/ll/i, 'jj') );

String literals are objects in JavaScript, unlike C.

No they are not. String primitive and string objects are distinct in
javascript, and string literals define string primitives.

OK, thanks for pointing that out.

--
Ian Collins.

[Csaba Gabor]

Richard Cornford wrote:

Csaba Gabor wrote:

Richard Cornford wrote:

<snip>

... . String primitive and string objects are distinct in
javascript, and string literals define string primitives.

<snip>

... . My question is, how does one change the string of the string
object without bothering the reference?

<snip>

Javascript does not have any means of changing the internal value of a
String object.

Thanks, I was afraid you might say something like that.
Well, if I can't unwrap the string object to get to the string, at
least I can wrap up the string in my own object to pretend that it's a
string object. Thus, I have a cleaner way to pass the string by
reference than wrapping it in an array. That is to say, other than a
distinct way to create it and a new in place replacement function
(.selfReplace), it appears to old code as a normal string.

I tried to modify the String object itself, similarly to the below (by
giving it a self value, to override any original value), but I didn't
get it working (yet?).

Csaba
function oString(str) {
this.__proto__ = new String(str);
this.toString = function() {return this.__proto__. toString(); };
this.valueOf = function() {return this.__proto__. valueOf(); };
this.selfReplac e = function(needle RegExp, strReplacement) {
this.__proto__ = new String(this.rep lace(needleRegE xp,
strReplacement) ); } }
function changeStr (oStr, newStr) { oStr.selfReplac e(/.*/, newStr); }

var oStr = new oString("my string"); alert("length: " + oStr.length);
oStr.selfReplac e (/str/,"th"); alert("replaced string: " + oStr);
changeStr(oStr, "something new"); alert("changed string: " + oStr);

[Dr John Stockton]

JRS: In article <11************ *********@f6g20 00cwb.googlegro ups.com>,
dated Mon, 5 Jun 2006 18:14:09 remote, seen in
news:comp.lang. javascript, gary <gb*****@gmail. com> posted :

How would one make the ECMA-262 String.replace method work with a
string literal?

For example, if my string was "HELLO[WORLD]" how would I make it work
in this instance.

Please note my square brackets are not regular expression syntax.

I assume that you want to use the above string as part of the RegExp, so
that a matching section can be found in a longer string.

S0 = "HELLO[WORLD]" // yours
S1 = S0.replace(/([\[\]])/g, "\\$1") // fix-up

T0 = "aaaHELLO[WORLD]cccxxxHELLO[WORLD]yyy" // test text

RE = new RegExp(S1)
T1 = T0.replace(RE, "bbb")

RE = new RegExp(S1, "g")
T2 = T0.replace(RE, "bbb")

A = [T1,,,T2] // results

No doubt you will need to fix up any other troublesome characters in S0,
by enhancing the line that gives S1.

Possibly, one could alternatively fix-up by converting characters to
Unicode???
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