Fastest method to replace all instances of a character in a string

The easiest would be to use a regular expression with g flag to replace all instances:

str.replace(/foo/g, "bar")

This will replace all occurrences of foo with bar in the string str. If you just have a string, you can convert it to a RegExp object like this:

var pattern = "foobar",
    re = new RegExp(pattern, "g");

var mystring = 'This is a string';
var newString = mystring.replace(/i/g, "a");

newString now is 'Thas as a strang'

What's the fastest I don't know, but I know what's the most readable - that what's shortest and simplest. Even if it's a little bit slower than other solution it's worth to use.

So use:

 "string".replace("a", "b");
 "string".replace(/abc?/g, "def");

And enjoy good code instead of faster (well... 1/100000 sec. is not a difference) and ugly one. ;)

I just coded a benchmark and tested the first 3 answers. It seems that for short strings (<500 characters)
the third most voted answer is faster than the second most voted one.

For long strings (add ".repeat(300)" to the test string) the faster is answer 1 followed by the second and the third.

Note:

The above is true for browsers using v8 engine (chrome/chromium etc).
With firefox (SpiderMonkey engine) the results are totally different
Check for yourselves!! Firefox with the third solution seems to be
more than 4.5 times faster than Chrome with the first solution... crazy :D

function log(data) {
  document.getElementById("log").textContent += data + "\n";
}

benchmark = (() => {

  time_function = function(ms, f, num) {
    var z;
    var t = new Date().getTime();
    for (z = 0;
      ((new Date().getTime() - t) < ms); z++) f(num);
    return (z / ms)
  } // returns how many times the function was run in "ms" milliseconds.


  function benchmark() {
    function compare(a, b) {
      if (a[1] > b[1]) {
        return -1;
      }
      if (a[1] < b[1]) {
        return 1;
      }
      return 0;
    }

    // functions

    function replace1(s) {
      s.replace(/foo/g, "bar")
    }

String.prototype.replaceAll2 = function(_f, _r){ 

  var o = this.toString();
  var r = '';
  var s = o;
  var b = 0;
  var e = -1;
//      if(_c){ _f = _f.toLowerCase(); s = o.toLowerCase(); }

  while((e=s.indexOf(_f)) > -1)
  {
    r += o.substring(b, b+e) + _r;
    s = s.substring(e+_f.length, s.length);
    b += e+_f.length;
  }

  // Add Leftover
  if(s.length>0){ r+=o.substring(o.length-s.length, o.length); }

  // Return New String
  return r;
};

String.prototype.replaceAll = function(str1, str2, ignore) {
      return this.replace(new RegExp(str1.replace(/([\/\,\!\\\^\$\{\}\[\]\(\)\.\*\+\?\|\<\>\-\&])/g, "\\$&"), (ignore ? "gi" : "g")), (typeof(str2) == "string") ? str2.replace(/\$/g, "$$$$") : str2);
    }

    function replace2(s) {
      s.replaceAll("foo", "bar")
    }

    function replace3(s) {
      s.split('foo').join('bar');
    }

    function replace4(s) {
      s.replaceAll2("foo", "bar")
    }


    funcs = [
      [replace1, 0],
      [replace2, 0],
      [replace3, 0],
      [replace4, 0]
    ];

    funcs.forEach((ff) => {
      console.log("Benchmarking: " + ff[0].name);
      ff[1] = time_function(2500, ff[0], "foOfoobarBaR barbarfoobarf00".repeat(10));
      console.log("Score: " + ff[1]);

    })
    return funcs.sort(compare);
  }

  return benchmark;
})()
log("Starting benchmark...\n");
res = benchmark();
console.log("Winner: " + res[0][0].name + " !!!");
count = 1;
res.forEach((r) => {
  log((count++) + ". " + r[0].name + " score: " + Math.floor(10000 * r[1] / res[0][1]) / 100 + ((count == 2) ? "% *winner*" : "% speed of winner.") + " (" + Math.round(r[1] * 100) / 100 + ")");
});
log("\nWinner code:\n");
log(res[0][0].toString());

<textarea rows="50" cols="80" style="font-size: 16; resize:none; border: none;" id="log"></textarea>

The test will run for 10s (+2s) as you click the button.

My results (on the same pc):

Chrome/Linux Ubuntu 64:
1. replace1 score: 100% *winner* (766.18)
2. replace4 score: 99.07% speed of winner. (759.11)
3. replace3 score: 68.36% speed of winner. (523.83)
4. replace2 score: 59.35% speed of winner. (454.78)

Firefox/Linux Ubuntu 64
1. replace3 score: 100% *winner* (3480.1)
2. replace1 score: 13.06% speed of winner. (454.83)
3. replace4 score: 9.4% speed of winner. (327.42)
4. replace2 score: 4.81% speed of winner. (167.46)

Nice mess uh?

Took the liberty of adding more test results

Chrome/Windows 10
1. replace1 score: 100% *winner* (742.49)
2. replace4 score: 85.58% speed of winner. (635.44)
3. replace2 score: 54.42% speed of winner. (404.08)
4. replace3 score: 50.06% speed of winner. (371.73)

Firefox/Windows 10
1. replace3 score: 100% *winner* (2645.18)
2. replace1 score: 30.77% speed of winner. (814.18)
3. replace4 score: 22.3% speed of winner. (589.97)
4. replace2 score: 12.51% speed of winner. (331.13)

Edge/Windows 10
1. replace1 score: 100% *winner* (1251.24)
2. replace2 score: 46.63% speed of winner. (583.47)
3. replace3 score: 44.42% speed of winner. (555.92)
4. replace4 score: 20% speed of winner. (250.28)

Chrome on Galaxy Note 4

1. replace4 score: 100% *winner* (99.82)
2. replace1 score: 91.04% speed of winner. (90.88)
3. replace3 score: 70.27% speed of winner. (70.15)
4. replace2 score: 38.25% speed of winner. (38.18)

Use the replace() method of the String object.

As mentioned in the selected answer, the /g flag should be used in the regex, in order to replace all instances of the substring in the string.

@Gumbo adding extra answer - user.email.replace(/foo/gi,"bar");

/foo/g - Refers to the all string to replace matching the case sensitive

/foo/gi - Refers to the without case sensitive and replace all For Eg: (Foo, foo, FoO, fOO)

DEMO