How do I transform an array that is in a string for javascript array?

Question

I have a string representing an array as follows:

var = "['aaaaa', 'bbbbb', 'ccccc', 'ddddd']";

Wish I could transform this array that is in the string into an Array to perform manipulations.

var = ['aaaaa', 'bbbbb', 'ccccc', 'ddddd'];

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

That string you have looks like a JSON, a representation on String of an array, so you can use JSON.parse() to transfer it to an array.

There is however a problem... ' is not valid as a string separator in JSON, so you cannot use

var arr = JSON.parse("['aaaaa', 'bbbbb', 'ccccc', 'ddddd']");

but yes:

var string = "['aaaaa', 'bbbbb', 'ccccc', 'ddddd']".replace(/'/g, '\"');
var arr = JSON.parse(string);
console.log(arr);

Answer 2

Another option is to use Array.prototype.map()

var a = "['aaaaa', 'bbbbb', 'ccccc', 'ddddd']";
var array = a.replace(/['\[\] ]/g,'').split(',').map(String);
console.log(array);

If you want to remove the whitespace at the beginning of the string

var a = "['Carro Azul', 'Carro Vermelho', 'ccccc', 'ddddd']";
var array = a.replace(/['\[\]]/g,'').split(',').map(function (str) {
   return str.trim();
});
console.log(array);

Answer 3

Just one more alternative:

var array = "['aaaaa', 'bbbbb', 'ccccc', 'ddddd']";
array = new Function("return " + array)(); // cria uma função retornando o array e a executa

console.log(array);

So whatever the content of array, the parse will be made.

Answer 4

You can use JSON.parse to solve this, but in the format it is will not work directly, the values must be enclosed with double quotes.

In that case then you could do it this way:

//Essa parte converte as aspas simples para aspas duplas
var str = "['aaaaa', 'bbbbb', 'ccccc', 'ddddd']";
str     = str.replace(/\'/g,'"');

//Essa parte converte a string em um objeto
var arr = JSON.parse( str );

Answer 5

var data = "['aaaaa', 'bbbbb', 'ccccc', 'ddddd']";
var array = data.replace("[","").replace("]","").split(",")

Answer 6

You can use JSON.parse() , but by default the json string values use " instead of ', this would convert the string to "

var arr = JSON.parse('["aaaaa", "bbbbb", "ccccc", "ddddd"]');