On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 8:54 AM, Benjamin (Inglor) Gruenbaum <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Splitting by one value or another seems to be a pretty common use case if
> Stack Overflow questions and personal experience are an indication. For
> example "-" and " " and "/".
>
> Currently, the solution is to pass a regular expression to
> String.prototype.split .
>
> However, it would be nice to be able to pass variable arguments to the
> method.
>
> So if I want to split strings like "0-12-12" and "321+32/14" or "TI-CK ER"
> instead of having to do:
>
> ```
> myString.split(/ |-|\/|\+/g); // this is no fun to read
>
This is subjective, as I have no trouble reading and understanding what
this means and is expected to do (also subjective).
>
> myString.split(" ","-","/","+"); // this is easier
> myString.split([" ","-","/","+"]); // this is also easier.
>
> ```
>
> The advantage of the second one (accepting an Array) is that it does not
> require additional handling of the second "limit" parameter.
>
> A possible advantage of the first one is that it's simpler.
>
> The algorithm for the second one could be quite simple, in 21.1.3.17 only
> _SplitMatch_ needs to be updated, and implementation sounds pretty simple
> in engines and the semantics simple in the spec.
>
> Some other languages:
>
> - C# accepts an array of `char` or array of "string" in its Split,
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/tabh47cf.aspx
> - Ruby doesn't do this with `.split`, behaves like JS
> http://ruby-doc.org/core-2.0.0/String.html#method-i-split
> - Java String.split only accepts a regex
> - Python doesn't do this with `.split`
>
> Advantages:
> - Nice api addition that solves a common use case.
> - A way to split by multiple delimiters easily without knowledge of
> regular expressions.
> - Does not break the existing API, especially if we use array syntax.
>
> Disadvantages
> - Extra overhead
> - Use case needs assertion
>
> (Reminds me of stuff in string_extras
> http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=harmony:string_extras )
>
>
>
> What do you think?
>
Since I've never actually found this to be a hardship, I'd be interested in
reading through the SO postings you mentioned above.
Rick
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