replace each word with specific word javascript regex

Question

I am trying to replace every word in a string with a certain word.

var str = "hello how are you can you please help me?";

and wish to arrive at the following

answer = "bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye";

Currently, I have

var answer = str.replace(/./g, 'bye');

which changes each letter to bye . How do I change it so that it just targets each word, and not each letter?

Answer 1

You can use this

str.replace(/[^\s]+/g, "bye");

or

str.replace(/\S+/g, "bye");

Regex Demo

JS Demo

 var str = "hello how are you can you please help me?"; document.writeln("<pre>" + str.replace(/\\S+/g, "bye") + "</br>" + "</pre>"); 

Answer 2

Small solution ( without regex ):

var 
  str = "hello how are you can you please help me?";

str.split(' ').map(function(a) {

  if (a === '') return;

  return 'bye';

}).join(' '); // "bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye"