How do I perform case insensitive string comparison in JavaScript?
23 Answers
The simplest way to do it (if you're not worried about special Unicode characters) is to call toUpperCase:
var areEqual = string1.toUpperCase() === string2.toUpperCase();
EDIT: This answer was originally added 9 years ago. Today you should use localeCompare with the sensitivity: 'accent' option:
function ciEquals(a, b) {
return typeof a === 'string' && typeof b === 'string'
? a.localeCompare(b, undefined, { sensitivity: 'accent' }) === 0
: a === b;
}
console.log("'a' = 'a'?", ciEquals('a', 'a'));
console.log("'AaA' = 'aAa'?", ciEquals('AaA', 'aAa'));
console.log("'a' = 'á'?", ciEquals('a', 'á'));
console.log("'a' = 'b'?", ciEquals('a', 'b'));The { sensitivity: 'accent' } tells localeCompare() to treat two variants of the same base letter as the same unless they have different accents (as in the third example) above.
Alternatively, you can use { sensitivity: 'base' }, which treats two characters as equivalent as long as their base character is the same (so A would be treated as equivalent to á).
Note that the third parameter of localeCompare is not supported in IE10 or lower or certain mobile browsers (see the compatibility chart on the page linked above), so if you need to support those browsers, you'll need some kind of fallback:
function ciEqualsInner(a, b) {
return a.localeCompare(b, undefined, { sensitivity: 'accent' }) === 0;
}
function ciEquals(a, b) {
if (typeof a !== 'string' || typeof b !== 'string') {
return a === b;
}
// v--- feature detection
return ciEqualsInner('A', 'a')
? ciEqualsInner(a, b)
: /* fallback approach here */;
}
Original answer
The best way to do a case insensitive comparison in JavaScript is to use RegExp match() method with the i flag.
When both strings being compared are variables (not constants), then it's a little more complicated 'cause you need to generate a RegExp from the string but passing the string to RegExp constructor can result in incorrect matches or failed matches if the string has special regex characters in it.
If you care about internationalization don't use toLowerCase() or toUpperCase() as it doesn't provide accurate case-insensitive comparisons in all languages.
As said in recent comments, string::localeCompare supports case insensitive comparisons (among other powerful things).
Here's a simple example
'xyz'.localeCompare('XyZ', undefined, { sensitivity: 'base' }); // returns 0
And a generic function you could use
function equalsIgnoringCase(text, other) {
return text.localeCompare(other, undefined, { sensitivity: 'base' }) === 0;
}
Note that instead of undefined you should probably enter the specific locale you are working with. This is important as denoted in the MDN docs
in Swedish, ä and a are separate base letters
Sensitivity options
Browser support
As of time of posting, UC Browser for Android and Opera Mini do not support locale and options parameters. Please check https://caniuse.com/#search=localeCompare for up to date info.
Remember that casing is a locale specific operation. Depending on scenario you may want to take that in to account. For example, if you are comparing names of two people you may want to consider locale but if you are comparing machine generated values such as UUID then you might not. This why I use following function in my utils library (note that type checking is not included for performance reason).
function compareStrings (string1, string2, ignoreCase, useLocale) {
if (ignoreCase) {
if (useLocale) {
string1 = string1.toLocaleLowerCase();
string2 = string2.toLocaleLowerCase();
}
else {
string1 = string1.toLowerCase();
string2 = string2.toLowerCase();
}
}
return string1 === string2;
}
Use RegEx for string match or comparison.
In JavaScript, you can use match() for string comparison,
don't forget to put i in RegEx.
Example:
var matchString = "Test";
if (matchString.match(/test/i)) {
alert('String matched');
}
else {
alert('String not matched');
}
I like this quick shorthand variation -
export const equalsIgnoreCase = (str1, str2) => {
return (!str1 && !str2) || (str1 && str2 && str1.toUpperCase() == str2.toUpperCase())
}
Quick in processing, and does what it is intended to.
Convert both to lower string (only once for performance reasons) and compare them with inline ternary operator:
function strcasecmp(s1,s2){
s1=(s1+'').toLowerCase();
s2=(s2+'').toLowerCase();
return s1>s2?1:(s1<s2?-1:0);
}
How about NOT throwing exceptions and NOT using slow regex?
return str1 != null && str2 != null
&& typeof str1 === 'string' && typeof str2 === 'string'
&& str1.toUpperCase() === str2.toUpperCase();
The above snippet assumes you don't want to match if either string is null or undefined.
If you want to match null/undefined, then:
return (str1 == null && str2 == null)
|| (str1 != null && str2 != null
&& typeof str1 === 'string' && typeof str2 === 'string'
&& str1.toUpperCase() === str2.toUpperCase());
If for some reason you care about undefined vs null:
return (str1 === undefined && str2 === undefined)
|| (str1 === null && str2 === null)
|| (str1 != null && str2 != null
&& typeof str1 === 'string' && typeof str2 === 'string'
&& str1.toUpperCase() === str2.toUpperCase());
If you know you're dealing with ascii text then you can just use a uppercase/lowercase character offset comparison.
Just make sure the string your "perfect" string (the one you want to match against) is lowercase:
const CHARS_IN_BETWEEN = 32;
const LAST_UPPERCASE_CHAR = 90; // Z
function strMatchesIgnoreCase(lowercaseMatch, value) {
let i = 0, matches = lowercaseMatch.length === value.length;
while (matches && i < lowercaseMatch.length) {
const a = lowercaseMatch.charCodeAt(i);
const A = a - CHARS_IN_BETWEEN;
const b = value.charCodeAt(i);
const B = b + ((b > LAST_UPPERCASE_CHAR) ? -CHARS_IN_BETWEEN : CHARS_IN_BETWEEN);
matches = a === b // lowerA === b
|| A === b // upperA == b
|| a === B // lowerA == ~b
|| A === B; // upperA == ~b
i++;
}
return matches;
}
For better browser compatibility you can rely on a regular expression. This will work in all web browsers released in the last 20 years:
String.prototype.equalsci = function(s) {
var regexp = RegExp("^"+this.replace(/[.\\+*?\[\^\]$(){}=!<>|:-]/g, "\\$&")+"$", "i");
return regexp.test(s);
}
"PERSON@Ü.EXAMPLE.COM".equalsci("person@ü.example.com")// returns true
This is different from the other answers found here because it takes into account that not all users are using modern web browsers.
Note: If you need to support unusual cases like the Turkish language you will need to use localeCompare because i and I are not the same letter in Turkish.
"I".localeCompare("i", undefined, { sensitivity:"accent"})===0// returns true
"I".localeCompare("i", "tr", { sensitivity:"accent"})===0// returns false
This is an improved version of this answer.
String.equal = function (s1, s2, ignoreCase, useLocale) {
if (s1 == null || s2 == null)
return false;
if (!ignoreCase) {
if (s1.length !== s2.length)
return false;
return s1 === s2;
}
if (useLocale) {
if (useLocale.length)
return s1.toLocaleLowerCase(useLocale) === s2.toLocaleLowerCase(useLocale)
else
return s1.toLocaleLowerCase() === s2.toLocaleLowerCase()
}
else {
if (s1.length !== s2.length)
return false;
return s1.toLowerCase() === s2.toLowerCase();
}
}
Usages & tests:
String.equal = function (s1, s2, ignoreCase, useLocale) {
if (s1 == null || s2 == null)
return false;
if (!ignoreCase) {
if (s1.length !== s2.length)
return false;
return s1 === s2;
}
if (useLocale) {
if (useLocale.length)
return s1.toLocaleLowerCase(useLocale) === s2.toLocaleLowerCase(useLocale)
else
return s1.toLocaleLowerCase() === s2.toLocaleLowerCase()
}
else {
if (s1.length !== s2.length)
return false;
return s1.toLowerCase() === s2.toLowerCase();
}
}
// If you don't mind extending the prototype.
String.prototype.equal = function(string2, ignoreCase, useLocale) {
return String.equal(this.valueOf(), string2, ignoreCase, useLocale);
}
// ------------------ TESTS ----------------------
console.log("Tests...");
console.log('Case sensitive 1');
var result = "Abc123".equal("Abc123");
console.assert(result === true);
console.log('Case sensitive 2');
result = "aBC123".equal("Abc123");
console.assert(result === false);
console.log('Ignore case');
result = "AbC123".equal("aBc123", true);
console.assert(result === true);
console.log('Ignore case + Current locale');
result = "AbC123".equal("aBc123", true);
console.assert(result === true);
console.log('Turkish test 1 (ignore case, en-US)');
result = "IiiI".equal("ıiİI", true, "en-US");
console.assert(result === false);
console.log('Turkish test 2 (ignore case, tr-TR)');
result = "IiiI".equal("ıiİI", true, "tr-TR");
console.assert(result === true);
console.log('Turkish test 3 (case sensitive, tr-TR)');
result = "IiiI".equal("ıiİI", false, "tr-TR");
console.assert(result === false);
console.log('null-test-1');
result = "AAA".equal(null);
console.assert(result === false);
console.log('null-test-2');
result = String.equal(null, "BBB");
console.assert(result === false);
console.log('null-test-3');
result = String.equal(null, null);
console.assert(result === false);We could also do this using ASCII:
function toLower(a){
let c = "";
for(let i = 0;i<a.length;i++){
let f = a.charCodeAt(i);
if(f < 95){
c += String.fromCharCode(f+32);
}
else{
c += a[i];
}
}
return c;
}
function compareIt(a,b){
return toLower(a)==toLower(b);
}
console.log(compareIt("An ExamPlE" , "an example"));
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