str.search()

The search() method executes a search for a match between a regular expression and this String object.

Syntax

str.search(regexp)

Parameters

regexp: A regular expression object. If a non-RegExp object obj is passed, it is implicitly converted to a RegExp by using new RegExp(obj).
Return value
integer: If successful, search() returns the index of the first match of the regular expression inside the string. Otherwise, it returns -1.

Description

When you want to know whether a pattern is found in a string use search() (similar to the regular expression test() method); for more information (but slower execution) use match() (similar to the regular expression exec() method).

Examples

Using `search()`

The following example logs a message which depends on the success of the test.

function testinput(re, str) {
  var midstring;
  if (str.search(re) != -1) {
    midstring = ' contains ';
  } else {
    midstring = ' does not contain ';
  }
  console.log(str + midstring + re);
}

Gecko-specific notes

Prior to Gecko 8.0, search() was implemented incorrectly; when it was called with no parameters or with undefined, it would match against the string 'undefined', instead of matching against the empty string. This is fixed; now 'a'.search() and 'a'.search(undefined) correctly return 0.
Starting with Gecko 39 , the non-standard flags argument is deprecated and throws a console warning (). This property is Gecko-only and will be removed in the future.

Created by Mozilla Contributors and licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.5

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