4 ways to convert a string to an array in Javascript

#javascript #beginners #webdev #programming

🐞 Today I share with you four ways to convert a string to an array in JavaScript.

const str = 'antonella';

str.split('');

let newStr = [...str];

Array.from(str);

Object.assign([],str);

// ['a ', 'n ', ' t ', 'o ', ' n ', ' e ', ' l', ' l ', ' a ']

👾 So simple! But they are those things that I google every day because I never remember.😅

Top comments (12)

Felippe Regazio • Aug 19 '21

Object.values(str);

Luke Shiru • Aug 18 '21

Didn't thought about the Object.assign approach, nice! As mentioned in other comments, we need to consider that some characters such as emojis return their parts, for example:

[..."👰🏻"]; // "👰", "🏻"

BTW, you can get syntax highlight in the code snippet on your post by adding the language after the triple back-tick.

Cheers!

tanth1993 • Aug 20 '21

it's not only emojis, but also many languages like chinese, japanese,... languages don't use alphabet, maybe cause errors.

Luke Shiru • Aug 20 '21 • Edited

Indeed. Mainly what I meant with "some characters like emojis" ... that's the easiest example, but there are lots of character sets that would produce errors -.-

lionel-rowe • Aug 18 '21

Not all of the ways give the same results, depending on the input string.

I started writing this as a comment, but it turned into an article instead. Enjoy! 🙃

Gotchas when converting strings to arrays in JS

lionel-rowe ・ Aug 18 ・ 3 min read

#javascript #unicode

leob • Aug 19 '21 • Edited

Woa ... Object.assign([],str); ... wouldn't ever have fathomed that something like that would work, in this way! (I wasn't even aware that Object.assign to an array would do anything that makes sense)

Jose Daniel Barria Reyes • Aug 20 '21

here.

const range = '[2,3]';

const [min, max] = JSON.parse(range);

// prints 2 3
console.log(min,max);

Mikhail Rychagov • Aug 19 '21

plus one useless trick:

[].map.call("foo", c => c); // ["f", "o", "o"]

Akin C. • Aug 21 '21

Hello Maria Antonella 🦋,

thanks for your article.
It's very brief but very revealing :D.
"So simple! But they are those things that I google every day because I never remember." I can empathize with that too😅.