Javascript swap characters in string

Question

Let's say I have a string like "abcabcabc" and I want the positions of 'a's and 'b's swapped so that I end up with "bacbacbac". What is the most elegant solution for this? (For the sake of this question I hereby define 'elegant' as fast and readable.)

I came up with

"abcabcabc".replace( /[ab]/g, function( c ){ return { 'a': 'b', 'b': 'a' }[ c ] } )

Which I neither regard fast nor readable. But now I wonder if there is a better way of doing it?

EDIT: The characters can be at any position. So the answer should hold for "xyza123buvwa456" (would be then "xyzb123auvwb456", too.

EDIT2: "swap" seems to be the wrong word. Replace all of a with b and all of b with a while both are single characters.

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I throw in a couple of other ones:

"abcabcabc".replace( 'a', '_' ).replace( 'b','a' ).replace( '_', 'b' )

"abcabcabc".replace( /[ab]/g, function( c ){ return "ba".charAt( c.charCodeAt()-'a'.charCodeAt() ); } )

"abcabcabc".replace( /[ab]/g, function( c ){ return "ab".charAt( "ba".indexOf( c ) ) } )

I ended up using a modified version of Mark C.'s Answer:

"abcabcabc".replace( /[ab]/g, c => c == 'a' ? 'b' : 'a' )

Answer 1

Try this :

str.replace(/[ab]/g, function($1) { return $1 === 'a' ? 'b' : 'a' })

example:

console.log("abcabcabc".replace(/[ab]/g, function($1) { return $1 === 'a' ? 'b' : 'a' }))

Answer 2

You can swap them (if they're always adjacent) by using a split/join combo:

console.log("abcabcabc".split("ab").join("ba"))

And in keeping with the split/join method, here's a way to swap them as individual characters (although it becomes significantly less readable):

console.log("aabbccaabbcc".split("a").map(s => s.split("b").join("a")).join("b"));

Answer 3

replace function accepts a string as the second parameter.

"abcabcabc".replace( /ab/g, "ba")