String Replace Utils

A small library which exposes some helpful string-replacement functions, including exact types. Types used here come from rolling-ts-utils.

⚠️ Pay attention to the use of as const throughout this document. Not using as const after string and array initialisation will result in generic types being used, or unexpected behaviour!

Installation

npm install --save string-replace-utils

Basic Usage

import { replace } from "string-replace-utils";

const str = "This is an example {noun}" as const;

const sentence = replace(str, "{noun}", "dog");
//    ^? typeof sentence = "This is an example dog"

API Reference

replace(str, key, value)

• str: The original string
• key: The substring to be replaced
• value: The string to be inserted in place of the first occurance of key
• If no match is found, the original string is returned

const str = "This is an example {noun}" as const;

const sentence = replace(str, "{noun}", "dog");
//    ^? typeof sentence = "This is an example dog"

replaceGlobal(str, key, value)

• str: The original string
• key: The substring to be replaced
• value: The string to be inserted in place of ALL occurances of key
• If no match is found, the original string is returned

const str = "This is {word} {word} {thing}" as const;

const sentence = replaceGlobal(str, "{word}", "dog");
//    ^? typeof sentence = "This is dog dog {thing}"

replaceOrdered(str, values)

• str: The original string
• values: An array containing the strings to be inserted in place of, in order, each occurance of {string}, where string is any string
• If no {string} is found, the original string is returned

const str = "This is {article} {adjective} {noun}." as const;

const sentence = replaceOrdered(str, ["a", "sneaky", "cat"] as const);
//    ^? typeof sentence = "This is a sneaky cat."

replaceMultiple(str, keys, values)

• str: The original string
• keys: An array containing the substrings to be replaced
• values: An array of strings to be inserted in place of the key at the same position in the Keys array
• If no match is found, the key-value pair has no impact

const str = "This is {article} {adjective} {noun}." as const;

const sentence = replaceMultiple(
  str,
  ["{article}", "{adjective}", "{noun}"] as const,
  ["a", "sneaky", "cat"] as const
);
//    ^? typeof sentence = "This is a sneaky cat."

replaceAll(str, value)

• str: The original string
• value: The string to be inserted in place of ALL occurences of {string}

const str = "This is {article} {adjective} {noun}." as const;

const sentence = replaceAll(str, "cat");
//    ^? typeof sentence = "This is a cat cat cat."

Weak Functions

A weak version of replaceMultiple is provided in weak.ts. This function does not support exact types, but allows key-value pairs to be passed as an array of {key, value} objects.

This was more useful in the past when the replaceMultiple function had the same functionality as the current replaceOrdered function (thus this was the only way to replace specified substrings):

const str = "This is {article} {adjective} {noun}." as const;

const sentence = weakReplaceMultiple(str, [
  { key: "{article}", value: "a" },
  { key: "{adjective}", value: "sneaky" },
  { key: "{noun}", value: "cat" },
]);
//    ^? "This is a sneaky cat."
//    typeof sentence = string

Replaceable Class

String Replace Utils also provides a class, Replaceable, containing all of the methods provided by the pure functions, to allow for chaining methods.

As the class extends String, it can be used in the same way as a normal string (though asserting as string, or widening accepted parameter-types to include Replaceable<string> may be necessary to prevent Type errors on functions which take string parameters). Alternatively, use .valueOf() to get the raw string, as in the examples below.

⚠️ Some methods do not share the same name as the pure functions:

• replace becomes extReplace to avoid conflict with String.prototype.replace()
• replaceAll becomes extReplaceAll to avoid conflict with String.prototype.replaceAll()

const str = new Replaceable("This is {article} {adjective} {noun}." as const);

const sentence = str
  .extReplace("{article}", "a")
  .extReplace("{adjective}", "sneaky")
  .extReplace("{noun}", "cat")
  .valueOf();
//    ^? typeof sentence = "This is a sneaky cat."

const str = new Replaceable("This is {article} {adjective} {noun}." as const);

const sentence = str
  .replaceMultiple(
    ["{article}", "{adjective}", "{noun}"] as const,
    ["a", "pesky", "goose"] as const
  )
  .valueOf();
//    ^? typeof sentence = "This is a pesky goose."