javascript jquery regexp replace

Question

I'm trying to create a dynamic searchbar and i need help.

Right now im trying to replace a string with another string but i cant seem to succeed.

Im getting input from the user:

var location_keyword = $("#si_user_location").val();

Now i would like to replace a whitespace " " with a "|" to use this in my regexp as OR.

For example if the user wrote "Turkey Alanya", i want it to be "Turkey|Alanya" so that the search hits for both Turkey OR Alanya.

i tried something like this but it didnt work

var location_keyword = $("#si_user_location").val();
location_keyword.replace(" ","|");
var regexp_loc = new RegExp(location_keyword, "i");

i used to do this in PHP before with expressions such as:

preg_replace('/'.preg_quote($keyword).'/i', "<span>$0</span>", $string)

and i could replace strings caseinsensetive like this, how can i do this in js?

I used the last expression in PHP to highlight the keyword in the results, which i would like to do aswell in js.

hope i can get some help, thanks in advance! :)

best of regards, alexander

Answer 1

There are two problems with the use of replace on this line:

location_keyword.replace(" ","|");

• It does not modify the string - it returns a new string. You need to reassign the result of the call to the original variable otherwise you won't see the changed string.
• It only replaces the first occurrence unless you use a regular expression with the g (global) flag.

Try this instead:

location_keyword = location_keyword.replace(/ /g, '|');

Answer 2

Try this:

location_keyword  = location_keyword.replace(/\s+/,"|");

Answer 3

This should work fine:

location_keyword.replace(/ /g,"|");

Hope this helps! :)