Question

I need to split a keyword string and turn it into a comma delimited string. However, I need to get rid of extra spaces and any commas that the user has already input.

var keywordString = "ford    tempo, with,,, sunroof";

Output to this string:

ford,tempo,with,sunroof,

I need the trailing comma and no spaces in the final output.

Not sure if I should go Regex or a string splitting function.

Anyone do something like this already?

I need to use javascript (or JQ).

EDIT (working solution):

var keywordString = ", ,, ford,    tempo, with,,, sunroof,, ,";

//remove all commas; remove preceeding and trailing spaces; replace spaces with comma

str1 = keywordString.replace(/,/g , '').replace(/^\s\s*/, '').replace(/\s\s*$/, '').replace(/[\s,]+/g, ',');


//add a comma at the end
str1 = str1 + ',';

console.log(str1);

Answer 1

You will need a regular expression in both cases. You could split and join the string:

str = str.split(/[\s,]+/).join();

This splits on and consumes any consecutive white spaces and commas. Similarly, you could just match and replace these characters:

str = str.replace(/[\s,]+/g, ',');

For the trailing comma, just append one

str = .... + ',';

If you have preceding and trailing white spaces, you should remove those first.

Reference: .split, .replace, Regular Expressions