how to split javascript string, leaving just the characters

Question

I would like to know how can I split a long string to an array of words. I would like to ignore/remove all the non alphabethic characters.

For example: If I have the next string: "free games @ somewhere, visit us. don't want to miss out?, then go ahead & visit us @ somewhere-to-download-from."

I would like it to be splitted to: "free,games,somewhere,visit,us,don't,want,to,miss,out,then,go,ahead,visit,us,somewhere,to,down,load,from"

In the end I will have an array size 20 that on each cell it holds one word of the above.

Answer 1

Try:

var chk = str.split(/[^a-z']+/i);
console.log(chk);

Answer 2

Use the Javascript split function with a regular expression. Example:

var str = "free games @ somewhere, visit us. don't want to miss out?, then go ahead & visit us @ somewhere-to-download-from.";
alert(str.split(/[^a-z]+/i));

Answer 3

This should work:

str = "free games @ somewhere, visit us. don't want to miss out?, then go ahead & visit us @ somewhere-to-download-from.";
str = str.replace(/[^a-z]/gi," ").replace(/ {1,}/g," ").split(" ");
document.write(str);

Answer 4

function specialSplit(str){
    var reqArray = new Array();
    var len = str.length;
    var tempStr = "";
    for(var i=0;i<len;i++){
        if(str[i].search(/[a-zA-Z']/)==0){
            tempStr = tempStr + str[i];
        }
        else if(tempStr.length > 0){
            reqArray.push(tempStr);
            tempStr = "";
        }
    }
    return reqArray;
}