How do I replace a character at a particular index in JavaScript?

Question

I have a string, let's say Hello world and I need to replace the char at index 3. How can I replace a char by specifying a index?

var str = "hello world";

I need something like

str.replaceAt(0,"h");

Answer 1

In JavaScript, strings are immutable, which means the best you can do is create a new string with the changed content, and assign the variable to point to it.

You'll need to define the replaceAt() function yourself:

String.prototype.replaceAt=function(index, replacement) {
    return this.substr(0, index) + replacement+ this.substr(index + replacement.length);
}

And use it like this:

var hello="Hello World";
alert(hello.replaceAt(2, "!!")); //should display He!!o World

Answer 2

There is no replaceAt function in JavaScript. You can use the following code to replace any character in any string at specified position:

function rep() {
    var str = 'Hello World';
    str = setCharAt(str,4,'a');
    alert(str);
}

function setCharAt(str,index,chr) {
    if(index > str.length-1) return str;
    return str.substr(0,index) + chr + str.substr(index+1);
}

<button onclick="rep();">click</button>

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Answer 3

You can't. Take the characters before and after the position and concat into a new string:

var s = "Hello world";
var index = 3;
s = s.substr(0, index) + 'x' + s.substr(index + 1);

Answer 4

There are lot of answers here, and all of them are based on two methods:

• METHOD1: split the string using two substrings and stuff the character between them
• METHOD2: convert the string to character array, replace one array member and join it

Personally, I would use these two methods in different cases. Let me explain.

@FabioPhms: Your method was the one I initially used and I was afraid that it is bad on string with lots of characters. However, question is what's a lot of characters? I tested it on 10 "lorem ipsum" paragraphs and it took a few milliseconds. Then I tested it on 10 times larger string - there was really no big difference. Hm.

@vsync, @Cory Mawhorter: Your comments are unambiguous; however, again, what is a large string? I agree that for 32...100kb performance should better and one should use substring-variant for this one operation of character replacement.

But what will happen if I have to make quite a few replacements?

I needed to perform my own tests to prove what is faster in that case. Let's say we have an algorithm that will manipulate a relatively short string that consists of 1000 characters. We expect that in average each character in that string will be replaced ~100 times. So, the code to test something like this is:

var str = "... {A LARGE STRING HERE} ...";

for(var i=0; i<100000; i++)
{
  var n = '' + Math.floor(Math.random() * 10);
  var p = Math.floor(Math.random() * 1000);
  // replace character *n* on position *p*
}

I created a fiddle for this, and it's here. There are two tests, TEST1 (substring) and TEST2 (array conversion).

Results:

• TEST1: 195ms
• TEST2: 6ms

It seems that array conversion beats substring by 2 orders of magnitude! So - what the hell happened here???

What actually happens is that all operations in TEST2 are done on array itself, using assignment expression like strarr2[p] = n. Assignment is really fast compared to substring on a large string, and its clear that it's going to win.

So, it's all about choosing the right tool for the job. Again.

Answer 5

Work with vectors is usually most effective to contact String.

I suggest the following function:

String.prototype.replaceAt=function(index, char) {
    var a = this.split("");
    a[index] = char;
    return a.join("");
}

Run this snippet:

String.prototype.replaceAt=function(index, char) {
    var a = this.split("");
    a[index] = char;
    return a.join("");
}

var str = "hello world";
str = str.replaceAt(3, "#");

document.write(str);

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Answer 6

In Javascript strings are immutable so you have to do something like

var x = "Hello world"
x = x.substring(0, i) + 'h' + x.substring(i+1);

To replace the character in x at i with 'h'

Answer 7

str = str.split('');
str[3] = 'h';
str = str.join('');

Answer 8

Show code snippet

function dothis() {
  var x = document.getElementById("x").value;
  var index = document.getElementById("index").value;
  var text = document.getElementById("text").value;
  var arr = x.split("");
  arr.splice(index, 1, text);
  var result = arr.join("");
  document.getElementById('output').innerHTML = result;
  console.log(result);
}
dothis();

<input id="x" type="text" value="White Dog" placeholder="Enter Text" />
<input id="index" type="number" min="0"value="6" style="width:50px" placeholder="index" />
<input id="text" type="text" value="F" placeholder="New character" />
<br>
<button id="submit" onclick="dothis()">Run</button>
<p id="output"></p>

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This method is good for small length strings but may be slow for larger text.

var x = "White Dog";
var arr = x.split(""); // ["W", "h", "i", "t", "e", " ", "D", "o", "g"]
arr.splice(6, 1, 'F');
var result = arr.join(""); // "White Fog"

/* 
  Here 6 is starting index and 1 is no. of array elements to remove and 
  final argument 'F' is the new character to be inserted. 
*/

Answer 9

This works similar to Array.splice:

String.prototype.splice = function (i, j, str) {
    return this.substr(0, i) + str + this.substr(j, this.length);
};

Answer 10

One-liner using String.replace with callback (no emoji support):

// 0 - index to replace, 'f' - replacement string
'dog'.replace(/./g, (c, i) => i == 0? 'f': c)
// "fog"

Explained:

//String.replace will call the callback on each pattern match
//in this case - each character
'dog'.replace(/./g, function (character, index) {
   if (index == 0) //we want to replace the first character
     return 'f'
   return character //leaving other characters the same
})

Answer 11

@CemKalyoncu: Thanks for the great answer!

I also adapted it slightly to make it more like the Array.splice method (and took @Ates' note into consideration):

spliceString=function(string, index, numToDelete, char) {
      return string.substr(0, index) + char + string.substr(index+numToDelete);
   }

var myString="hello world!";
spliceString(myString,myString.lastIndexOf('l'),2,'mhole'); // "hello wormhole!"

Answer 12

I did a function that does something similar to what you ask, it checks if a character in string is in an array of not allowed characters if it is it replaces it with ''

    var validate = function(value){
        var notAllowed = [";","_",">","<","'","%","$","&","/","|",":","=","*"];
        for(var i=0; i<value.length; i++){
            if(notAllowed.indexOf(value.charAt(i)) > -1){
               value = value.replace(value.charAt(i), "");
               value = validate(value);
            }
       }
      return value;
   }

Answer 13

If you want to replace characters in string, you should create mutable strings. These are essentially character arrays. You could create a factory:

  function MutableString(str) {
    var result = str.split("");
    result.toString = function() {
      return this.join("");
    }
    return result;
  }

Then you can access the characters and the whole array converts to string when used as string:

  var x = MutableString("Hello");
  x[0] = "B"; // yes, we can alter the character
  x.push("!"); // good performance: no new string is created
  var y = "Hi, "+x; // converted to string: "Hi, Bello!"

Answer 14

I know this is old but the solution does not work for negative index so I add a patch to it. hope it helps someone

String.prototype.replaceAt=function(index, character) {
    if(index>-1) return this.substr(0, index) + character + this.substr(index+character.length);
    else return this.substr(0, this.length+index) + character + this.substr(index+character.length);

}

Answer 15

You could try

var strArr = str.split("");

strArr[0] = 'h';

str = strArr.join("");

Answer 16

You can extend the string type to include the inset method:

String.prototype.insert = function (index,value) {
  return this.substr(0, index) + value + this.substr(index,this.length);
};

var s = "new function";
alert(s.insert(4,"insert string "));

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Then you can call the function:

Answer 17

Lets say you want to replace Kth index (0-based index) with 'Z'. You could use Regex to do this.

var re = var re = new RegExp("((.){" + K + "})((.){1})")
str.replace(re, "$1A$`");

Answer 18

Here is a version I came up with if you want to style words or individual characters at their index.

replaceAt( yourArrayOfIndexes, yourString/orArrayOfStrings ) 

Working example: https://codesandbox.io/s/lr5zjxrn67

function replaceAt(indexArray, string) {
  let newString = [...string];

  for (let i = 0; i < indexArray.length; i++) {
    newString = Object.assign(newString, {
      [indexArray[i]]: <b>{newString[indexArray[i]]}</b>
    });
  }

  return newString;
}

And here is another alternate method

function replaceAt(indexArray, string) {
  const newString = [...string];

  return newString.map(i => {
    indexArray.map(i => {
      return (newString[i] = <b>{newString[i]}</b>);
    });
    return i;
  });
}

Answer 19

You can use the following function to replace Character or String at a particular position of a String. To replace all the following match cases use String.prototype.replaceAllMatches() function.

String.prototype.replaceMatch = function(matchkey, replaceStr, matchIndex) {
    var retStr = this, repeatedIndex = 0;
    for (var x = 0; (matchkey != null) && (retStr.indexOf(matchkey) > -1); x++) {
        if (repeatedIndex == 0 && x == 0) {
            repeatedIndex = retStr.indexOf(matchkey);
        } else { // matchIndex > 0
            repeatedIndex = retStr.indexOf(matchkey, repeatedIndex + 1);
        }
        if (x == matchIndex) {
            retStr = retStr.substring(0, repeatedIndex) + replaceStr + retStr.substring(repeatedIndex + (matchkey.length));
            matchkey = null; // To break the loop.
        }
    }
    return retStr;
};

Test:

var str = "yash yas $dfdas.**";

console.log('Index Matched replace : ', str.replaceMatch('as', '*', 2) );
console.log('Index Matched replace : ', str.replaceMatch('y', '~', 1) );

Output:

Index Matched replace :  yash yas $dfd*.**
Index Matched replace :  yash ~as $dfdas.**

Answer 20

The methods on here are complicated. I would do it this way:

var myString = "this is my string";
myString = myString.replace(myString.charAt(number goes here), "insert replacement here");

This is as simple as it gets.