I have a string like this:

var examplestring = 'Person said "How are you doing?" ';

How can I get the string inside the double quotes. Specifically, I want a var that is set to How are you doing? in this case.

I have a string like this:

var examplestring = 'Person said "How are you doing?" ';

How can I get the string inside the double quotes. Specifically, I want a var that is set to How are you doing? in this case.

• javascript
• jquery
• regex

• What about if the string is 'Person said "How are you doing?" and then said "any better?" '; ? – Lee Taylor Commented Jan 13, 2013 at 2:24
• 1 In my case, I can ensure there is only one set of double quotes in the string. – Risha Commented Jan 13, 2013 at 2:25

3 Answers 3

One way would be to use regular expressions:

var match = exampleString.match(/"([^"]*)"/);

if(match) {
  var quoted = match[1]; // -> How are you doing?
} else {
  //no matches found
}

var quotedString = examplestring.split('"')[1];

This will split on each ", into the following

quotedString[0] = "Person said ";
quotedString[1] = "How are you doing?"
quotedString[2] = " ";

And then select from index 1 of the new array, returning "How are you doing?" (without the quotes).

https://developer.mozilla/en-US/docs/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/String/split

var examplestring = 'Person said "How are you doing?" ';
var extract = examplestring.match(/\"(.*)\"/);
alert(extract[1]);