Javascript strings - getting the char at a certain point

Question

I have a variable:

var text = "hello";

I want to get the 0 positioned character, so:

var firstChar = text[0];

Simple. In firefox and chrome this works. In IE however i always get back 'undefined'

Any ideas why this might be happening in IE?

From now, learn that everything that works in `good` browsers doesn't work in `IE`. I think MS people wanted to code an extra dimension aside the current web development context. — Garis M Suero, Sep 08 '10 at 14:32
Addenda: works fine in IE8 (as I write this), and in IE7 instead of throwing an error returns something that is parsedInt'ed as NaN instead of exploding. Tracking this problem sure took much longer than it should... — ANeves, Jan 07 '11 at 18:37

Daniel Vandersluis · Accepted Answer · 2010-09-08T14:32:06.500

17

Strings aren't accessible like arrays in IE (prior to IE9). Instead you can use charAt, which is available cross-browser:

var text = "hello";
var firstChar = text.charAt(0);
// firstChar will be 'h'

edited Sep 08 '10 at 14:32

answered Sep 08 '10 at 14:24

1

+1 for *charAt()*. FWIW, IE8 in standards mode and IE9 support array-style referencing of characters in strings just like Chrome and Firefox. – Andy E Sep 08 '10 at 14:36

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 08 '10 at 14:25

1

You can use .substr().

var firstChar = text.substr(0,1);

answered Sep 08 '10 at 14:25

user113716

I'd use this as it's the most cross-browser compatible. – Paulo Santos Sep 08 '10 at 14:26

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 08 '10 at 14:26

0

I'm not sure why that doesn't work, but you could try using substr()

answered Sep 08 '10 at 14:26

Stephan Muller

3 Answers3