What is the difference between indexOf() and search()?

Question

Being fairly new to JavaScript, I\'m unable to discern when to use each of these.

Can anyone help clarify this for me?

Answer 1

IndexOf() - it accepts string literals or string objects but not regular expressions. It also accepts a zero-based integer value to start its search from, e.g.:

1. "babyelephant".indexOf("e"); // gives you 4
2. "babyelephant".indexOf("e",5); // gives you 6 as the search starts from 6th position or 5th index.
3. var m= /e/; "babyelephant".indexOf(m); //gives -1 as it doesnt accepts regular expressions.

Search() - accepts both string literals or string objects and regular expressions. But it doesn't accepts a index to start the search from.