ESNext: Replace all occurrences of a piece of text in a string with String.prototype.replaceAll

An ECMAScript Language feature that’s currently in Stage-3 is String.prototype.replaceAll, a handy way to replace all instances of a piece of text in a string.

💁‍♂️ Stage-3?

The Technical Committee which is concerned with the standardization of ECMAScript (i.e. TC39) has a 5 stage process in place, ranging from stage-0 to stage-4, by which it develops a new language feature.

Stage-3 is the Candidate Stage where the feature is considered complete and only critical changes will happen based on implementation experience. If all goes well the proposal will advance to Stage 4 without any changes, after which it will to become part of the ECMAScript Specification.

~

The Problem

If you ever needed to replace a piece of text in a string you most likely will have used String.prototype.replace:

'the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog'.replace('a', '_')
// ~> "the quick brown fox jumps over the l_zy dog"

There’s one somewhat counterintuitive issue with it though: it only replaces the first match it finds:

'the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog'.replace('o', '_')
// ~> "the quick br_wn fox jumps over the lazy dog"

One of the workarounds we can use today is to use a global regular expression (e.g. a RegEx with the g flag):

'the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog'.replace(/o/g, '_')
// ~> "the quick br_wn f_x jumps _ver the lazy d_g"

~

The Solution

The String.prototype.replaceAll proposal offers us a non-hacky solution, right in the JavaScript language:

'the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog'.replaceAll('o', '_')
// ~> "the quick br_wn f_x jumps _ver the lazy d_g"

Its method signature is exactly the same as String.prototype.replace‘s:

String.prototype.replaceAll(searchValue, replaceValue)

Implementation-wise it differs in only two ways from String.prototype.replace:

1. When given a string as its searchValue: replaceAll will replace all occurrences, whereas replace will only replace the first — hence why it is being proposed in the first place.
2. When given a non-global regular expression (e.g. a RegEx without the g flag) as its searchValue: replaceAll will throw an exception as the word replaceAll implies to “replace all” but the lack of the g flag implies exactly the opposite — Computer says no.

~

Browser Support

Although the feature is Stage-3 already, it’s not enabled in browsers yet. To test this feature:

• In Chrome: Enable #enable-javascript-harmony in chrome://flags/
• In Firefox: N/A
• In Safari: Enabled in Safari Technology Preview Release 97

~