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JavaScript

Antony .
Antony .
2,824 Points
Posted by Antony .
Antony .
2,824 Points

How to find a specific word in a string and place it in a variable?

I need to find the word "Antony" inside this array and place it in a global variable.

let word = ["Hi my name is Antony and I like to code!"];
Antony .
Antony .
2,824 Points
Antony .
Antony .
2,824 Points

updated my post!

Brendan Whiting
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.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Brendan Whiting
Front End Web Development Techdegree Graduate 84,738 Points
Brendan Whiting
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Brendan Whiting
Front End Web Development Techdegree Graduate 84,738 Points

Is the string always going to be in this format? Like:

const introductions = [`Hi my name is Antony and I like to code!"`, `Hi my name is Brendan and I like to code!`]

1 Answer

Brendan Whiting
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.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Brendan Whiting
Front End Web Development Techdegree Graduate 84,738 Points
Brendan Whiting
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Brendan Whiting
Front End Web Development Techdegree Graduate 84,738 Points

One way of solving this is with the split method on strings. We have this string "Hi my name is Antony and I like to code!". We can call .split() on it passing in an argument for how to split the string. So we can pass in "Hi my name is " and it will split the string by that separator. We end up with an array of two items, the first one being just an empty string:

const intro = "Hi my name is Antony and I like to code!"
const remainder = intro.split("Hi my name is ") // [ '', 'Antony and I like to code!' ];

We can grab the 2nd item (index 1) in that array, and then call split on it again this time passing in " and I like to code!". When we get an array back from this call to split, the name we're looking for will be at index 0 because it should be right at the beginning:

const name = remainder[1].split(" and I like to code!")[0]; // 'Antony'

We can put all of this in a function, and then map over an array to get all the names:

const introductions = [
    "Hi my name is Antony and I like to code!", 
    "Hi my name is Brendan and I like to code!"
]

const findNameFromString = (str) => {
    return str
        .split("Hi my name is ")[1]
        .split(" and I like to code!")[0];
}

const names = introductions.map(findNameFromString); // [ 'Antony', 'Brendan' ]

An alternative could be to use a regular expression.

const regexFindNameFromString = (str) => {
    const regex = /Hi my name is (?<name>[\w\s]+) and I like to code!/;
    return regex.exec(str).groups.name;
}
const names = introductions.map(regexFindNameFromString); // [ 'Antony', 'Brendan' ]

There are probably other ways too.