Split template string on line breaks ignoring literal \n

Question

I have some textual data in multiple lines, stored in an ES6 template string. Any line may contain a literal \\n string. Example:

`line1
same\nline2
line3`

I want to split that string into an array of lines, where each line originates from a line of the template string, without splitting at a literal \\n within a line. So my expected / wanted result was a JavaScript array looking like this: ["line1", "same\\nline2", "line3"] .

When looking at the example below, this obviously doesn't happen when simply splitting using a regexp for line breaks ( /\\n/ ).

So, is this possible at all? Am I missing / misunderstanding something on how template strings work?

 const lines = `line1 same\\nline2 line3`.split(/\\n/); document.getElementById('out').textContent = JSON.stringify(lines) 

 <pre id="out"></pre> 

Answer 1

You can use the String.raw tag on your template literal:

const lines = (String.raw `line1
same\nline2
line3`).split(/\n/);

console.log(lines);

Answer 2

\\n is treated as a new line and regex will always match it. In your string you can escape \\n like:

`line1
same\\nline2
line3`

Splitting by \\n will give now:

 ["line1", "same\nline2", "line3"]

Beware that now \\n is just a string, not a new line - but you can map this array and replace it to the real new line.

["line1", "same\nline2", "line3"].map(value => value.replace(/\\n/g, "\n"))