I need to split a CSS class names string into array of CSS class names in JavaScript. All the below strings should produce the same array.

'lmn-button,lmn-button-primary' => ['lmn-button', 'lmn-button-primary']

'lmn-button, lmn-button-primary' => ['lmn-button', 'lmn-button-primary'] // Note the space after ma

'lmn-button ,lmn-button-primary' => ['lmn-button', 'lmn-button-primary'] // Note the space before ma

'  lmn-button ,lmn-button-primary' => ['lmn-button', 'lmn-button-primary'] // Note the space at start

'lmn-button ,lmn-button-primary  ' => ['lmn-button', 'lmn-button-primary'] // Note the space at end

Currently I'm using code to do that,

cssClassesString.split(',').map(cssClass => cssClass.trim());

But I believe regex would be a better solution that this right?

I got this regex by googling /([^,]+) but the result array has spaces in class names.

How can I improve the above regex to handle that?

I need to split a CSS class names string into array of CSS class names in JavaScript. All the below strings should produce the same array.

'lmn-button,lmn-button-primary' => ['lmn-button', 'lmn-button-primary']

'lmn-button, lmn-button-primary' => ['lmn-button', 'lmn-button-primary'] // Note the space after ma

'lmn-button ,lmn-button-primary' => ['lmn-button', 'lmn-button-primary'] // Note the space before ma

'  lmn-button ,lmn-button-primary' => ['lmn-button', 'lmn-button-primary'] // Note the space at start

'lmn-button ,lmn-button-primary  ' => ['lmn-button', 'lmn-button-primary'] // Note the space at end

Currently I'm using code to do that,

cssClassesString.split(',').map(cssClass => cssClass.trim());

But I believe regex would be a better solution that this right?

I got this regex by googling /([^,]+) but the result array has spaces in class names.

How can I improve the above regex to handle that?

• javascript
• regex

• I would suggest to avoid regex where string methods can do the job, but if you prefer regex, what about: /([^, ]+)/ which means "any character but not space or ma, one or more times"? – urban Commented Apr 7, 2018 at 9:25
• or also /([^,\s]+)/... – Matteo Ragni Commented Apr 7, 2018 at 9:28
• Just use var result = s.match(/[^,\s]+/g) – Wiktor Stribiżew Commented Apr 7, 2018 at 11:00

3 Answers 3

const arr = ' lmn-button ,lmn-button-primary'.trim().split(/\s*,\s*/);
console.log(arr);

You may simply extract all substrings that consist of 1+ chars other than whitespace and ma.

var result = s.match(/[^,\s]+/g)

See the regex demo.

The [^...] is a negated character class matching any char but the one(s) specified in the class. , matches mas and \s matches any whitespace chars, so [^,\s] matches any char but a ma and whitespace. + quantifier matches 1+ consecutive occurrences of such chars.

JS demo:

var tests = ['lmn-button,lmn-button-primary', 'lmn-button, lmn-button-primary', 'lmn-button ,lmn-button-primary','  lmn-button ,lmn-button-primary', 'lmn-button ,lmn-button-primary  '];
var rx = /[^\s,]+/g;
for (var s of tests) {
  console.log(s, "=>", s.match(rx));
}

You can you use this

console.log('lmn-button ,lmn-button-primary'.split(/[ ,.]+/));