I found a thread in the c# forums that's exactly what I need, but I need it in JavaScript. Basically I need regex that will put spaces between each character of a phrase.

For example,

TEST

would bee

T E S T

Explanations would be helpful, and I'm new to this, so please be nice :)

I'm building my project in a program that only allows regex code, so it needs to be that.

I found a thread in the c# forums that's exactly what I need, but I need it in JavaScript. Basically I need regex that will put spaces between each character of a phrase.

For example,

TEST

would bee

T E S T

Explanations would be helpful, and I'm new to this, so please be nice :)

I'm building my project in a program that only allows regex code, so it needs to be that.

• javascript
• regex

• This is me nicely asking you what you've tried so far and why you want to use a regex for this. You can get by without one by splitting the string into characters then joining them with a space. str.split("").join(" "); – user1106925 Commented May 16, 2015 at 19:20
• 1 I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it uses offensive language. – user663031 Commented May 16, 2015 at 19:27
• What would T E S T A bee ? – user557597 Commented May 16, 2015 at 19:32
• What kind of "program" would you be building your project in that only allows regex code? Regexps themselves do not manipulate or mutate strings; they only match. You can use routines such as String#replace to mutate a string based on the results of matching a regexp. However, if you are able to use replace, then you are also able to use split and join. – user663031 Commented May 16, 2015 at 19:37
• 1 @torazaburo I'm making a translator at lingojam., and i have literally never coded before. im about ready to drop the question and give up, because, to no one's surprise, the internet responds to ignorance with rude messages. – deactivated874569854679402 Commented May 16, 2015 at 19:41

3 Answers 3

"TEST".replace(/(.)(?=.)/g, "$1 ")
// Outputs
// => T E S T

• (.) Matches a single character. Captures in group 1($1)

• (?=.) Positive look ahead. Checks if the captured character is followed by another character.

• "$1 " Replacement string. $1 Contains the character captured in group 1, followed by a space

• g Global modifier. Applies the replace globally for all the matches within the string.

Regex Demo

You can use the following:

(.)(?!$)

And replace with '$1 '(space)

See DEMO

You say you want this in JavaScript, then you edited your question (after I posted this answer) to say you must use a regex. Without that (strange, to me) requirement, you can do this with split() and join() in JavaScript without using a regex.

var myString = "TEST";
var result = myString.split('').join(' ');
console.log(result); // "T E S T"

For this and all the regular expression solutions so far provide, if you will have special characters, this will be problematic. For example 'foo