.replace problem

Question

I have a problem with html().replace:

<script type="text/javascript">
 jQuery(function() { 
 jQuery(".post_meta_front").html(jQuery(".post_meta_front").html().replace(/\<p>Beschreibung:</p> /g, '<span></span>'));
});
</script>

what is wrong in my script?

• Strelok: It would be good if you described what the problem is. And posted your HTML or at least a short extract.
• Ascherer: need quotes around the regex maybe?

Answer 1

Why are you using regex for this?

If you want to replace an element with another, you can use jQuery's .replaceWith() method.

jQuery(".post_meta_front p:contains('Beschreibung:')")
 .replaceWith('<span></span>');

Or if you need to ensure an exact match on the content:

jQuery(".post_meta_front p").filter(function() {
 return $.text([ this ]) === 'Beschreibung:';
}).replaceWith('<span></span>');

• bobince: +1. Relying on the format of the output of html() at all is inadvisable (different browsers will give different text escaping, element case and attribute quoting formatting). Using DOM-style methods like this is more reliable, and doesn't unnecessarily destroy and re-create all the other nodes you are not replacing.

Answer 2

You need to escape forward slashes / in the regex part.

<script type="text/javascript">
 jQuery(function() { 
 jQuery(".post_meta_front").html(jQuery(".post_meta_front").html().replace(/<p>Beschreibung:<\/p> /g, '<span></span>'));
});
</script>

Answer 3

It looks like you're not escaping all of the special characters in the find parameter of the replace function. You're only escaping the first < character.

Try something like:

/\<p\>Beschreibung:\<\/p\>/g

Note that replace is a function of javascript not jQuery.