How to replace multiple strings with the .replace() Method?

Question

I want to make a content editable div in which I replace explicit words with asterisks. This is my JavaScript code:

function censorText(){
    var explicit          


        

Answer 1

A generic way to handle this is as follows:

Establish a dictionary and build a regexp:

  var dictionary = { bad: 'good', worse: 'better', awful: 'wonderful'},
      regexp = RegExp ('\\b(' + Object.keys (dictionary).join ('|') + ')\\b', 'g');

The regexp is constructed from the dictionary key words (note they must not contain RegExp special characters).

Now do a replace, using a function in the place of the replacing string, the function simply return the value of the corresponding key.

  text = text.replace (regexp, function (_, word) { return dictionary[word]; });

The OP made no reference to upper/lower case. The following caters for initial and all caps and wraps the code as a function :

  function clean (text) {
    var dictionary = { bad: 'good', worse: 'better', awful: 'wonderful'},
        regexp = RegExp ('\\b(' + Object.keys (dictionary).join ('|') + ')\\b', 'ig');

    return text.replace (regexp, function (_, word) { 
      _ = dictionary[word.toLowerCase ()];
      if (/^[A-Z][a-z]/.test (word)) // initial caps
        _ = _.slice (0,1).toUpperCase () + _.slice (1);
      else if (/^[A-Z][A-Z]/.test (word)) // all caps
        _ = _.toUpperCase ();
      return _;
    });
  }

See the fiddle : http://jsfiddle.net/nJNq2/