Simple javascript find and replace

Question

is there a straightforward method for searching within a div for a specific string and replacing it with another? I cannot use .replaceWith alone because there are other ele

Answer 1

Here's a jQuery plugin I just wrote that provides safeReplace for collections.

(function($){

$.fn.safeReplace = function ( find, replacement ) {

    return this.each(function(index, elem) {

        var
            queue = [elem],
            node,
            i;

        while (queue.length) {

            node = queue.shift();

            if (node.nodeType === 1) {
                i = node.childNodes.length;
                while (i--) {
                    queue[queue.length] = node.childNodes[i];
                }
            } else if (node.nodeType === 3) {
                node.nodeValue = node.nodeValue.replace( find, replacement );
            }
        }

    });
};

})(jQuery);

And here's how you use it:

$('#foo').safeReplace( /this string/g, 'something else' );

I've only tested in FF 4, and only on the sample HTML input - more testing is recommended.

Hope this helps!