How to write palindrome in JavaScript

Question

I wonder how to write palindrome in javascript, where I input different words and program shows if word is palindrome or not. For example word noon is palindrome, while bad

Answer 1

Let us start from the recursive definition of a palindrome:

1. The empty string '' is a palindrome
2. The string consisting of the character c, thus 'c', is a palindrome
3. If the string s is a palindrome, then the string 'c' + s + 'c' for some character c is a palindrome

This definition can be coded straight into JavaScript:

function isPalindrome(s) {
  var len = s.length;
  // definition clauses 1. and 2.
  if (len < 2) {
    return true;
  }
  // note: len >= 2
  // definition clause 3.
  if (s[0] != s[len - 1]) {
    return false;
  }
  // note: string is of form s = 'a' + t + 'a'
  // note: s.length >= 2 implies t.length >= 0
  var t = s.substr(1, len - 2);
  return isPalindrome(t);
}

Here is some additional test code for MongoDB's mongo JavaScript shell, in a web browser with debugger replace print() with console.log()

function test(s) {
  print('isPalindrome(' + s + '): ' + isPalindrome(s));
}

test('');
test('a');
test('ab');
test('aa');
test('aab');
test('aba');
test('aaa');
test('abaa');
test('neilarmstronggnortsmralien');
test('neilarmstrongxgnortsmralien');
test('neilarmstrongxsortsmralien');

I got this output:

$ mongo palindrome.js
MongoDB shell version: 2.4.8
connecting to: test
isPalindrome(): true
isPalindrome(a): true
isPalindrome(ab): false
isPalindrome(aa): true
isPalindrome(aab): false
isPalindrome(aba): true
isPalindrome(aaa): true
isPalindrome(abaa): false
isPalindrome(neilarmstronggnortsmralien): true
isPalindrome(neilarmstrongxgnortsmralien): true
isPalindrome(neilarmstrongxsortsmralien): false

An iterative solution is:

function isPalindrome(s) {
  var len = s.length;
  if (len < 2) {
    return true;
  }
  var i = 0;
  var j = len - 1;
  while (i < j) {
    if (s[i] != s[j]) {
      return false;
    }
    i += 1;
    j -= 1;
  }
  return true;
}