CharAt. A Node.js string may contain many characters. We can iterate over these characters with a for-loop, and then index the characters or use charAt.
With the result from charAt, we can access other arrays and objects. This helps us develop complex algorithms and thus improve performance.
CharAt example. The charAt function takes a 1-character string at an index. It is the same as the string indexer in functionality.
Info We use the for-loop to iterate over the indexes in the string. We call charAt to get each individual letter.
var letters = "abc";
// Loop over all string indexes.
for (var i = 0; i < letters.length; i++) {
// Use charAt to get a 1-char string.
var result = letters.charAt(i);
// The letter is a string that is 1 char long.
console.log("LETTER: " + result);
console.log("LETTER LENGTH: " + result.length);
}LETTER: a
LETTER LENGTH: 1
LETTER: b
LETTER LENGTH: 1
LETTER: c
LETTER LENGTH: 1
CharCodeAt. This function converts a character at an index into its ASCII (or Unicode) equivalent int. It does not handle all Unicode values. But it can handle ASCII strings well.
var letters = "abc";
for (var i = 0; i < letters.length; i++) {
// Use charCodeAt to get ASCII values from letters.
var point = letters.charCodeAt(i);
console.log("CHARCODEAT: " + point);
}CHARCODEAT: 97
CHARCODEAT: 98
CHARCODEAT: 99
String.fromCharCode. With charCodeAt we get a character code from a string. And with String.fromCharCode we convert a character code back into a string.
Tip With a character code, we can change the character value by adding or subtracting (like a number). We cannot do this with a string.
Tip 2 After the transformation, we can call String.fromCharCode to convert the code back into a string.
var input = "c";
// Get char code and reduce it by one.
var letterCode = input.charCodeAt(0);
letterCode--;
// Convert char code into a string.
var result = String.fromCharCode(letterCode);
// Display the values.
console.log("INPUT: " + input);
console.log("CHARCODEAT: " + letterCode);
console.log("FROMCHARCODE: " + result);
console.log("LENGTH: " + result.length);INPUT: c
CHARCODEAT: 98
FROMCHARCODE: b
LENGTH: 1
CharCodeAt, scan string. With charCodeAt we can test a string for multiple values in a single pass. This can avoid excessive loops over a string with indexOf.
Tip With a charCodeAt loop, we can see if a string needs further processing, and only call replace() on it if needed.
Tip 2 This style of code can yield significant performance benefits—it can reduce string copies and make processing input faster.
function hasParentheses(value) {
for (var i = 0; i < value.length; i++) {
var code = value.charCodeAt(i);
switch (code) {
case 40: // Left parenthesis.
case 41: // Right parenthesis.
return true;
}
}
return false;
}
if (hasParentheses("cat(dog)")) {
console.log(true);
}
if (!hasParentheses("bird")) {
console.log(true);
}true
true
With charAt, we can optimize certain string-processing algorithms. We can avoid copying strings repeatedly as multiple transformations are applied.
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This page was last updated on Dec 13, 2023 (edit).