Question

The screenshot below the code shows me issue. It only rainbowfies one instance of text.

How can I get this code to do each [rainbow]specified[/rainbow] text?

It’s actually for ActionScript but it works in Javascript too so I’ve been testing on http://jsfiddle.net

var txt = "This is a [rainbow]test to show that I can[/rainbow] make whatever I want [rainbow]appear as a rainbow[/rainbow] because I am [rainbow]awesome[/rainbow].";

if ((txt.indexOf("[rainbow]") > -1) && (txt.indexOf("[/rainbow]") > -1)) {
    var firstChar = txt.indexOf("[rainbow]") + 9;
    var lastChar = txt.indexOf("[/rainbow]");

    var RAINBOWTEXT = '';
    var i = firstChar;

    while (i < lastChar) {
        RAINBOWTEXT += txt.charAt(i);
        i++
    }
    var text = RAINBOWTEXT;
    var texty = '';

    colors = new Array('ff00ff', 'ff00cc', 'ff0099', 'ff0066', 'ff0033', 'ff0000', 'ff3300', 'ff6600', 'ff9900', 'ffcc00', 'ffff00', 'ccff00', '99ff00', '66ff00', '33ff00', '00ff00', '00ff33', '00ff66', '00ff99', '00ffcc', '00ffff', '00ccff', '0099ff', '0066ff', '0033ff', '0000ff', '3300ff', '6600ff', '9900ff', 'cc00ff');
    var i = 0;

    while (i <= text.length) {
        var t = text.charAt(i);

        if (t != undefined) {
            texty += "<font color=\"#" + colors[i % colors.length] + "\">" + t + "</font>";
            i++;
        }
    }

    texty = texty.replace("> <", ">&nbsp;<");
    var REPLACEME = "[rainbow]" + RAINBOWTEXT + "[/rainbow]";
    txt = txt.replace(REPLACEME, texty);
    document.write(txt);
}​

Answer 1

Make it a loop. .indexOf can take a starting point as the second parameter, so with starting the next iteration at lastChar+10 should work.

Apart from that, it might be easier to do it fully with regex and .replace:

return txt.replace(/\[rainbow\](.+?)\[\/rainbow\]/g, function(all, match, index, str) {
    return createRGBrainbowArray(match.length).map(function(color, i) {
        return '<span style="color:#'+color+'">'+match[i]+'</span>';
    }).join("");
});
function createRGBrainbowArray(l) {
    // should return an Array of length l with hexadecimal color strings,
    // representing a nice rainbow
}