JavaScript String to Array

To turn a string into an array in JavaScript, you can use the split method. This method takes in a delimiter as an argument, and it splits the string into an array of substrings based on that delimiter.

Here is an example:

// Create a string
let myString = "Hello, world!";

// Split the string into an array of substrings
let myArray = myString.split(",");

// Output the array
console.log(myArray); // ["Hello", " world!"]
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

The split method is a very useful method for working with strings in JavaScript, and it is often used in conjunction with other string manipulation methods.

For example, you can use split to break up a string into individual words, and then use the join method to combine those words into a new string.

Real-World Example

Suppose you have a string containing a list of email addresses, separated by semicolons (;), and you want to split this string into an array of individual email addresses. You can use the split method to do this, like this:

// Create a string containing a list of email addresses
let emailString = "[email protected];[email protected];[email protected]";

// Split the string into an array of email addresses
let emailArray = emailString.split(";");

// Output the array
console.log(emailArray); // ["[email protected]", "[email protected]", "[email protected]"]
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

In this example, the split method is used to split the email string into an array of individual email addresses. This array can then be used for further processing, such as sending emails to each address in the array.

Splitting All Characters

To split all the characters from a string into an array, you can use the split method, passing in an empty string ("") as the delimiter. This will split the string into an array of individual characters. Here is an example:

// Create a string
let myString = "Hello, world!";

// Split the string into an array of individual characters
let myArray = myString.split("");

// Output the array
console.log(myArray); // ["H", "e", "l", "l", "o", ",", " ", "w", "o", "r", "l", "d", "!"]
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

This method will split the string into an array of individual characters, including any whitespace characters, punctuation, and other special characters.

Splitting Words

If you want to split the string into an array of “words” (i.e. substrings separated by whitespace), you can use the split method with a space character (" ") as the delimiter.

// Create a string
let myString = "Hello, world!";

// Split the string into an array of words
let myArray = myString.split(" ");

// Output the array
console.log(myArray); // ["Hello,", "world!"]
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

Other Methods

There are three other methods for splitting an array into a string. But these have the limitation of splitting all characters and not being able to specify a delimiter:

// Create a string
let myString = "Hello, world!";

// Split the string into an array of individual characters using the spread operator
[...myString];

// Split the string into an array of individual characters using Array.from
Array.from(myString);

// Split the string into an array of individual characters using Object.assign
Object.assign([], myString);

// All of the above methods have the same output:
// ['H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', ',', ' ', 'w', 'o', 'r', 'l', 'd']
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

I recommend sticking to the split method because it is the most common and versatile.