javascript - split string only on first instance of specified character

Question

In my code I split a string based on _ and grab the second item in the array.

var element = $(this).attr('class');
var field = element.split('_')[1];

Takes good_luck and provides me with luck. Works great!

But, now I have a class that looks like good_luck_buddy. How do I get my javascript to ignore the second _ and give me luck_buddy?

I found this var field = element.split(new char [] {'_'}, 2); in a c# stackoverflow answer but it doesn't work. I tried it over at jsFiddle...

Answer 1

Use capturing parentheses:

"good_luck_buddy".split(/_(.+)/)[1]
"luck_buddy"

They are defined as

If separator contains capturing parentheses, matched results are returned in the array.

So in this case we want to split at _.+ (i.e. split separator being a sub string starting with _) but also let the result contain some part of our separator (i.e. everything after _).

In this example our separator (matching _(.+)) is _luck_buddy and the captured group (within the separator) is lucky_buddy. Without the capturing parenthesis the luck_buddy (matching .+) would've not been included in the result array as it is the case with simple split that separators are not included in the result.