Searching and replacing text

Elm:
Searching and replacing text

How to:

In Elm, you can use the String module to replace parts of a string. Let’s see it in action:

import String

replaceExample : String
replaceExample =
    String.replace "cat" "dog" "The cat sat on the mat"

-- The output will be: "The dog sat on the mat"

Deep Dive

Elm’s way of handling string search and replace is pretty straightforward, akin to other functional languages. It doesn’t use regular expressions for this in the core language by default, unlike languages such as JavaScript. This simplicity is by design to maintain Elm’s goals of reliability and maintainability.

Historically, Elm aims to provide a robust set of built-in functions that handle common tasks, and search-replace is no different. Elm’s String module has been there since the early days, although it has seen changes as the language evolved.

Alternatives to using the String.replace function might include writing your own search and replace logic or pulling in an additional package that extends Elm’s string manipulation capabilities, such as regex-based searching.

In terms of implementation, Elm’s String.replace function is pure. That means it always produces the same output for a given input and has no side effects – a core principle in Elm’s design. It uses an efficient algorithm under the hood, but the language abstracts away the complexity so you can focus on coding without sweating the small stuff.

Elm:Searching and replacing text

How to:

Deep Dive

See Also

Elm:
Searching and replacing text