Java Script Strings

By Stephen Bucaro

In programming, the word "string" refers to an array of characters like a sentence or a paragraph. JavaScript provides a built-in String object which provides you with many methods for searching and manipulating strings. You can use the String object constructor to create a String object as shown below.

<script type="text/javascript">
var myString = new String("This is my string.");
alert(myString);
</script>

Note that the string must be contained within quotation marks. In fact, when you assign a string of characters within quotation marks to a variable in JavaScript, as shown below, it is automatically converted to a string.

<script type="text/javascript">
var myString = "This is my string.";
alert(myString);
</script>

In fact, the keyword var is not strictly necessary, as the "=" character will automatically assume that you are creating and assigning a variable, although I consider it bad programming practice to leave it out.

Concatenating Strings

To concatenate means to connect together. If you need to concatenate two or more strings, you can use the String object's concat method, as shown below.

<script type="text/javascript">
var firstString = "Now is the time for all good men ";
var secondString = "to come to the aid of their country.";

var myString = firstString.concat(secondString);
alert(myString);
</script>

In fact you can use the concat method to connect any number of strings together by separating the strings names with commas, using the syntax shown below.

string.concat(string1, string2, ... ,stringN)

In fact, using the concat method is not strictly necessary, as you can use the "+" operator to concatenate strings as shown below.

<script type="text/javascript">
var strFirst = "John";
var strLast = "Kennedy";
var strFull = strFirst + "F." + strLast;
alert(strFull);
</script>