JavaScript String search() Method

The search() method in JavaScript is used to search for a specified substring within a string. It returns the index of the first occurrence of the substring within the string. If the substring is not found, it returns -1.

Syntax

string.search( A )

Parameters

This method accepts a single parameter A which holds the regular expression as an object.

Return Value

This method returns the index of the first match string in between the regular expression and the given string object and returns -1 if no match is found. Indexing starts from zero (0) and in the first attempt, an alphabet is matched, then it does not check further. Simply, it returns the index of that first matched alphabet.

JavaScript String search() Method Examples

Example 1: Searching Characters with Regular Expressions in JavaScript

The code utilizes the search() method with regular expressions to find the index of matching characters within the string “GeeksforGeeks”. It prints the index of the first occurrence of ‘G’, ‘e’, and ‘s’ respectively.

// Taking input a string.
let string = "GeeksforGeeks";

// Taking a regular expression.
let re1 = /G/;
let re2 = /e/;
let re3 = /s/;

// Printing the index of matching alphabets
console.log(string.search(re1));
console.log(string.search(re2));
console.log(string.search(re3));

0
1
4

Example 2: Searching Characters without Regular Expressions in JavaScript

let str = "GeeksforGeeks";
let searchString = "for";
let Result = str.search(searchString);
console.log(Result);

5

Supported Browsers

• Google Chrome 1
• Edge 12
• Firefox 1
• Opera 4
• Safari 1

JavaScript String search() Method – FAQs

How does the search() method work?

The search() method takes a regular expression or a string as an argument and searches the string for a match. It returns the position of the first occurrence of the match, or -1 if no match is found.

Does the search() method modify the original string?

No, the search() method does not modify the original string. It only searches for the specified value and returns the index of the first match or -1.

How does the search() method handle case sensitivity?

The search() method is case-sensitive. For example, “Hello, world!”.search(“World”) returns -1 because the case does not match.

How does the search() method handle Unicode characters?

The search() method correctly handles Unicode characters. If you need to ensure Unicode matching, you can use the u flag in the regular expression.

What are some common use cases for the search() method?

Common use cases for the search() method include:

• Finding the position of a substring within a string.
• Searching for patterns in strings using regular expressions.
• Validating input by checking for the presence of specific characters or patterns.

We have a complete list of Javascript Strings methods, to check those please go through Javascript String Complete reference article.

K

Kanchan_Ray

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Article Tags :

• JavaScript
• Web Technologies
• JavaScript-Methods
• javascript-string