I am looking to take a string and find all the spaces in it and separate that into different variables. I know I could use the .split() but that wouldn't make new variables. I would prefer to not use jQuery or other JavaScript library but if I have to, it wouldn't be the worst thing. Thanks!

Example, John M Peters would result in the variables fname: John, mname: M and lname: Peters.

I am looking to take a string and find all the spaces in it and separate that into different variables. I know I could use the .split() but that wouldn't make new variables. I would prefer to not use jQuery or other JavaScript library but if I have to, it wouldn't be the worst thing. Thanks!

Example, John M Peters would result in the variables fname: John, mname: M and lname: Peters.

• javascript
• string

• Do all names always have a middle initial? – Paul Commented Feb 23, 2012 at 3:45
• No they don't. I am doing a check before I split it to see if there is a middle initial. – Joe Torraca Commented Feb 23, 2012 at 3:46

5 Answers 5

.split() just returns an array, so you can easily assign new variables using that...

var str = "John M Peters";
var fname = str.split(" ")[0];
var mname = str.split(" ")[1];
var lname = str.split(" ")[2];

You can split the string like so:

var name = 'John M Peters';
var arr = name.split(' ');

var obj = {fname: arr[0]};
if(arr.length === 1) {
    obj.lname = arr[1];
} else {
    obj.mname = arr[1];
    obj.lname = arr[2];
}

console.log(obj.fname);
console.log(obj.mname); //could be undefined
console.log(obj.lname);

This solution will also work for a string that does not have a middle initial as well. You can see this example here: http://jsfiddle/nDwmY/2/

If you don't know how many spaces there are in the string, beforehand, you can do the following:

var str = "How are you doing today, my dear friend?";
numberspaces = str.split(" ").length; //you know how many spaces there are
words=str.split(" ");                 //it creates an array of words
var i;
for (i = 0; i < numberspaces; i++){
console.log(words[i]);}

I would create a function along these lines. This is just a quick-and-dirty and doesn't do any validation, I leave that up to you.

function parse_name(theName) {
    var nameSplit = theName.split(" ");

    var nameFields = {
            first  : nameSplit[0],
            middle : nameSplit[1],
            last   : nameSplit[2]
        };

    return nameFields;
}

Then you can call it any time you need to parse a name.

var parsedName = parse_name("John M Smith");

alert(parsedName.first); // Should alert "John"
alert(parsedName.middle); // Should alert "M"
alert(parsedName.last); // Should alert "Smith"

In addition to the answers the others pointed out, I'd like to point out that Mozilla's JavaScript engine (spidermonkey) supports destructuring assignments:

<script language="javascript1.7">
  var s = 'John M. Peters';
  var fname, mname, lname;

  [fname, mname, lname] = s.split(/\s+/);
  alert('fname = ' + fname + ', mname = ' + mname + ', lname = ' + lname);
</script>

This is not portable, so not ideal for web programming. However, if you're writing a plugin for firefox or thunderbird or etc, then there are a number of interesting language extensions available.