Extracting the first letter from a string using javascript

Question

If i have a string say, 1234 Newyork Street, America and i want to extract the first LETTER from the string.

I understand how to use

 string.charAt(0);

But this extracts for example '1' from the example above. How would i modify the code so if i enter

string.charAt(0);

I extract the first LETTER which is 'N'.

scragar · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-20 14:01:04Z

2

string.replace(/[^a-zA-Z]/g, '').charAt(0);

This will remove anything that is not a letter, then return the first letter.

edited May 20, 2014 at 14:01

answered May 20, 2014 at 13:52

scragar

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4 Comments

mohamedrias Over a year ago

It's just the opposite. It will remove anything which is a letter :P

scragar Over a year ago

@mohamedrias What do you mean?

mohamedrias Over a year ago

string = "1234 Newyork Street, America" string.replace(/[^a-zA-Z]/, '').charAt(0); output : "2" , its returning 2

scragar Over a year ago

@mohamedrias Ah, I get you now. Added global flag so it removes all non-letters, rather than just the first.

helpermethod · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-20 13:55:57Z

1

Use search to get the index of the first letter, then use charAt:

var s = "1234 Newyork Street, America";
s.charAt(s.search(/[a-zA-Z]/));

answered May 20, 2014 at 13:55

helpermethod

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Comments

mohamedrias · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-20 13:56:46Z

0

Both of these will work :

string.replace(/^[1-9\s]+/g,"")[0]

or

replace(/^[1-9\s]+/g,"").charAt(0)

answered May 20, 2014 at 13:56

mohamedrias

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Comments

lucasjackson · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-20 14:04:50Z

0

You can use regular expression capturing to find the first letter:

var s = "1234 Newyork Street, America",
    result = s.match(/([a-zA-Z]).*/),
    firstLetter;

if(result) {
    firstLetter = result[1];
}

answered May 20, 2014 at 14:04

lucasjackson

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