Question

having a javascript string

var s = ' hi there \n <textarea> hello \n there </texarea> hi \n hi';

anybody knows how to do a replace of \n to <br/> that will only affect the \n symbols outside of the textarea ?
the result should be this:

'hi there <br/> <textarea> hello \n there </texarea> hi <br/> hi';   

Answer 1

For a single textarea, you can use match to select the textarea. Then, use replace using a Regular expression with the global flag to replace all newlines by <br/>.

var s = s.replace(/\n/g, "<br//>");
//Replace all newline characters by "<br//>"

var textareaContent = s.match(/<textarea>[\s\S]+?<\/textarea>/i);
//Preparation: Selects a textarea

var newString = textareaContent[0].replace(/<br\/\/>/g, "\n");
//Preparation: replaces all "<br//>" inside the textarea by "\n" (newline feed)

s = s.replace(textareaContent[0], newString);
//Replaces the textarea inside the string by the new textarea (= including "\n")

var desiredResult = s.replace(/<br\/\/>/g, "<br/>");
//Replaces the remaining "<br//>" (the ones outside the textarea) by "<br/>"

If you have to support multiple textareas, you can use a for loop in conjunction with the exec method of the Regular expression object.