Is there a way to transform a string that holds an array into an actual Array utilizing Javascript?

I have a string that looks like this: '[a, b]' I am looking to create an array that appears as follows: ["a", "b"]

This is the script I came up with:

const str = '[a, b]'
const arr = str.replace('[', '').replace(']', '').replaceAll("'", '').split(',')
console.log(arr)

Although my code resolves the issue at hand, I am curious if there is a more efficient method to achieve the same outcome compared to what I have implemented.

Answer №1

Why not simply remove the first and last characters before splitting by using ', '? It accomplishes the same task with fewer lines of code.

const str = '[a, b]';

console.log(str.slice(1, -1).split(', '))

Answer №2

It seems like there is some confusion in your question.

If you are always dealing with the string format '[a, b]':

You can simplify it by doing:

const result = ['a', 'b']

as there is no need for any parsing.

If your string can be either '[a, b]' or '[x, d]'

  1. Use
    str.replace(/[a-z]/g, '"$&"'
    to convert a to "a"
  2. Utilize JSON.parse for parsing the revised string

const str = '[a, b]'
const result = JSON.parse(str.replace(/[a-z]/g, '"$&"'))
console.log(result)

/[a-z]/g can be substituted based on the complexity of your substrings e.g. /[a-zA-Z\d]+/g allows longer strings with mixed cases and numbers.

This approach is more reliable as it focuses on converting only the incorrect parts before using JSON.parse, reducing the likelihood of errors.


The most effective solution would involve transforming your initial string into valid JSON.

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