JavaScript: Find a word within a string

JavaScript String: Exercise-29 with Solution

Find Word in String

Write a JavaScript function to find a word within a string.

Test Data:
console.log(search_word('The quick brown fox', 'fox'));
console.log(search_word('aa, bb, cc, dd, aa', 'aa'));
Output:
"'fox' was found 1 times."
"'aa' was found 2 times."

Visual Presentation:

Sample Solution:

JavaScript Code:

// Define a function named search_word taking two parameters: text (the text to search within) and word (the word to search for)
function search_word(text, word){
    // Initialize variables x and y to track occurrences of the word
    var x = 0, y=0;
   
    // Loop through the characters of the text string
    for (i=0;i< text.length;i++)
        {
        // Check if the current character matches the first character of the word
        if(text[i] == word[0])
            {
            // If a potential match is found, iterate through the characters of the word
            for(j=i;j< i+word.length;j++)
               {
                // Check if the characters of the text match the characters of the word
                if(text[j]==word[j-i])
                  {
                    // Increment y if a match is found
                    y++;
                  }
                // If all characters of the word match consecutively, increment x
                if (y==word.length){
                    x++;
                }
            }
            // Reset y for the next potential match
            y=0;
        }
    }
   // Return the result indicating how many times the word was found in the text
   return "'"+word+"' was found "+x+" times.";
}

// Demonstrate the usage of the search_word function with two example inputs and log the results to the console
console.log(search_word('The quick brown fox', 'fox'));
console.log(search_word('aa, bb, cc, dd, aa', 'aa'));

Output:

'fox' was found 1 times.
'aa' was found 2 times.

Explanation:

In the exercise above,

• The function "search_word()" takes two parameters: 'text' (the text to search within) and 'word' (the word to search for).
• It initializes two variables 'x' and 'y' to track occurrences of the word.
• It loops through the characters of the 'text' string.
• If the current character matches the first character of the 'word', it enters a nested loop to check if the consecutive characters of the 'text' match the characters of the 'word'.
• If all characters of the 'word' match consecutively, it increments x.
• It returns a string indicating how many times the 'word' was found in the 'text'.
• Finally, it demonstrates the "search_word()" function with two example inputs and logs the results to the console.

Flowchart:

Live Demo:

See the Pen JavaScript Find a word within a string - string-ex-29 by w3resource (@w3resource) on CodePen.

For more Practice: Solve these Related Problems:

• Write a JavaScript function that searches for a specific word in a string and counts its occurrences.
• Write a JavaScript function that uses regular expressions to find and count matches of a given word.
• Write a JavaScript function that outputs a message indicating the word and the number of times it was found.
• Write a JavaScript function that handles case-insensitive search and returns the count of occurrences.

Improve this sample solution and post your code through Disqus.

Previous: Write a JavaScript function to convert Hexadecimal to ASCII format.
Next: Write a JavaScript function check if a string ends with specified suffix.