How to Convert a String into an Array in JavaScript

In JavaScript, you can use the built-in split() method to split a string into an array of substrings based on a specified delimiter:

string.split(separator, limit)

Parameters

Examples

Split a string with commas and spaces

The code:

const colors = "red, green, blue, yellow, orange, purple, pink"

const colorArray = colors.split(", ")
console.log(colorArray)

Output:

[
  'red',    'green',
  'blue',   'yellow',
  'orange', 'purple',
  'pink'
]

Using split() with the limit parameter

The code:

let str = "apple,banana,slingacademy.com";
let arr = str.split(",", 2);
console.log(arr);

Output:

["apple", "banana"]

In the example above, the split() method is used with a limit parameter of 2, which splits the string into an array of 2 substrings.

Using the split() method with regular expressions

You can use regular expressions to create complex and complicated splitting patterns, such as splitting a string based on any whitespace character (spaces, tabs, line breaks):

let str = "Welcome to slingacademy.com. This website is dedicated to learning JavaScript. We have a lot of JavaScript tutorials for beginners and advanced learners. We also have a lot of JavaScript projects for you to practice your JavaScript skills.";

let arr = str.split(/\s+/);
console.log(arr);

Output:

[
  'Welcome',     'to',         'slingacademy.com.',
  'This',        'website',    'is',
  'dedicated',   'to',         'learning',
  'JavaScript.', 'We',         'have',
  'a',           'lot',        'of',
  'JavaScript',  'tutorials',  'for',
  'beginners',   'and',        'advanced',
  'learners.',   'We',         'also',
  'have',        'a',          'lot',
  'of',          'JavaScript', 'projects',
  'for',         'you',        'to',
  'practice',    'your',       'JavaScript',
  'skills.'
]

Alternatives

Besides the split() method, there are some other solutions for splitting a string into an array. However, they all have limitations and only fit some special use cases.

Using the spread operator

Example:

let str = "hello";
let arr = [...str];
console.log(arr);

Output:

["h", "e", "l", "l", "o"]

Using Array.from()

Example:

let str = "hello";
let arr = Array.from(str);
console.log(arr);

Output:

["h", "e", "l", "l", "o"]

I hope this helps! Leave a comment if you have any more questions.