This post will illustrate the approach for replacing special characters within a string.
How to Replace All Special Characters in a String in JavaScript?
From the string, replace all the special characters through the “replace()” method. It simply replaces the string with any other specified value. replace() is a predefined method of the String type object. It accepts two parameters, “searchValue” and “replaceValue”, and outputs a string with a specific replacement after searching the string for a specific value or a regex pattern.
Syntax
Follow the below-provided syntax to use the replace() method:
In our case, we will remove the special characters from a string with an empty string, so, the special characters in a string are the “searchValue” that will be searched in a string, and an empty string will act as the replacer or “replaceValue”.
Let’s see the examples, to understand the working of the replace() method.
Example 1: Replacing All String’s Special Characters Without Spaces
In this example, we will remove all special characters except space from a string using the JavaScript replace() method. For this purpose, first, we will create a string named “str” that contains special characters and spaces between words:
Then, call the “replace()” method by passing a regex as a search value that checks the string whether any special character exists in the string or not. If yes, then it places an empty string as a replacement of character:
Finally, print the resultant string with the help of the “console.log()” method:
As you can see in the output, all the special characters from the string are removed except spaces:
There are some situations where you want to remove special characters including spaces from a string, if you want to do this, follow the given example.
Example 2: Replacing All String’s Special Characters With Spaces
Here, we will remove all the String’s special characters with spaces. To do so, first, we will create a string that contains special characters with spaces:
Now, call the replace() method by passing regex and the empty string, as a search and replacer value. A string’s special characters and spaces will be searched for using the regex, and they will be replaced with an empty string:
Lastly, print the resultant string on the console:
The output shows that all the special characters including spaces are removed from the string:
We have provided the simplest and effective procedure for removing the special characters from the string.
Conclusion
For replacing special characters from a string, use the “replace()” method. It searches the string for the special characters based on the provided pattern and replaces them with the specified replacer. You can update or create the pattern based on the requirements. This post illustrated the method for removing special characters from a string with a detailed explanation.
