Question

Below you’ll see a javascript/jQuery function I’m currently using:

            var forward = new RegExp('forward'),
                backward = new RegExp('backward'),              
                left = new RegExp('left'),      
                right = new RegExp('right');                

            if ( tweet.message.match(forward) ) {
                console.log('forward');
                body.addClass('forward');
                bodyRemoveClass();                          
            }

            if ( tweet.message.match(backward) ) {
                console.log('backward');
                body.addClass('backward');
                bodyRemoveClass();                          
            }

            if ( tweet.message.match(left) ) {
                console.log('left');
                body.addClass('left');
                bodyRemoveClass();                          
            }

            if ( tweet.message.match(right) ) {
                console.log('right');
                body.addClass('right');
                bodyRemoveClass();                          
            }                   

Everything works just fine, but I’m not 100% happy with the way it’s written.
Basically what that does is, check if a given keyword (forward, backward, left or right)
are in a tweet (tweet.message)

I would like to know if there is a simple/cleaner way to achieve this.

Sorry but there is no online example…

Thank you

Answer 1

There’s no need to use match() with Regexp here. You can do simple string matching with indexOf(). You can then avoid declaring all the Regexp at the beginning.

        if ( tweet.message.indexOf("forward") > -1) {
            console.log('forward');
            body.addClass('forward');
            bodyRemoveClass();                          
        }

        if ( tweet.message.indexOf("backward") > -1) {
            console.log('backward');
            body.addClass('backward');
            bodyRemoveClass();                          
        }

        if ( tweet.message.indexOf("left") > -1) {
            console.log('left');
            body.addClass('left');
            bodyRemoveClass();                          
        }

        if ( tweet.message.indexOf("right") > -1) {
            console.log('right');
            body.addClass('right');
            bodyRemoveClass();                          
        }               

However, this is much more neatly accomplished with an array of classes:

// Store your 4 classes in an array
var classes = ["forward","backward","left","right"];
for (var i = 0; i<classes.length; i++) {

  // Check each class appearing in the message:
  if ( tweet.message.indexOf(classes[i]) > -1) {
     console.log(classes[i]);
     body.addClass(classes[i]);
     bodyRemoveClass();                          
  }
}