Javascript how to split newline

Question

You should parse newlines regardless of the platform (operation system) This split is universal with regular expressions. You may consider using this:

var ks = $('#keywords').val().split(/\r?\n/);

E.g.

"a\nb\r\nc\r\nlala".split(/\r?\n/) // ["a", "b", "c", "lala"]

Try initializing the ks variable inside your submit function.

  (function($){
     $(document).ready(function(){
        $('#data').submit(function(e){
           var ks = $('#keywords').val().split("\n");
           e.preventDefault();
           alert(ks[0]);
           $.each(ks, function(k){
              alert(k);
           });
        });
     });
  })(jQuery);

It should be

yadayada.val.split(/\n/)

you're passing in a literal string to the split command, not a regex.

Since you are using textarea, you may find \n or \r (or \r\n) for line breaks. So, the following is suggested:

$('#keywords').val().split(/\r|\n/)

ref: check whether string contains a line break

Just

var ks = $('#keywords').val().split(/\r\n|\n|\r/);

will work perfectly.

Be sure \r\n is placed at the leading of the RegExp string, cause it will be tried first.

The simplest and safest way to split a string using new lines, regardless of format (CRLF, LFCR or LF), is to remove all carriage return characters and then split on the new line characters. "text".replace(/\r/g, "").split(/\n/);

This ensures that when you have continuous new lines (i.e. \r\n\r\n, \n\r\n\r, or \n\n) the result will always be the same.

In your case the code would look like:

(function ($) {
    $(document).ready(function () {
        $('#data').submit(function (e) {
            var ks = $('#keywords').val().replace(/\r/g, "").split(/\n/);
            e.preventDefault();
            alert(ks[0]);
            $.each(ks, function (k) {
                alert(k);
            });
        });
    });
})(jQuery);

Here are some examples that display the importance of this method:

var examples = ["Foo\r\nBar", "Foo\r\n\r\nBar", "Foo\n\r\n\rBar", "Foo\nBar\nFooBar"];

examples.forEach(function(example) {
  output(`Example "${example}":`);
  output(`Split using "\n": "${example.split("\n")}"`);
  output(`Split using /\r?\n/: "${example.split(/\r?\n/)}"`);
  output(`Split using /\r\n|\n|\r/: "${example.split(/\r\n|\n|\r/)}"`);
  output(`Current method: ${example.replace(/\r/g, "").split("\n")}`);
  output("________");
});

function output(txt) {
  console.log(txt.replace(/\n/g, "\\n").replace(/\r/g, "\\r"));
}

1. Move the var ks = $('#keywords').val().split("\n"); inside the event handler
2. Use alert(ks[k]) instead of alert(k)

---

  (function($){
     $(document).ready(function(){
        $('#data').submit(function(e){
           e.preventDefault();
           var ks = $('#keywords').val().split("\n");
           alert(ks[0]);
           $.each(ks, function(k){
              alert(ks[k]);
           });
        });
     });
  })(jQuery);

Demo