Trim specific character from a string

Question

One line is enough:

var x = '|f|oo||';
var y = x.replace(/^\|+|\|+$/g, '');
document.write(x + '<br />' + y);

^     beginning of the string
\|+   pipe, one or more times
|     or
\|+   pipe, one or more times
$     end of the string

A general solution:

function trim (s, c) {
  if (c === "]") c = "\\]";
  if (c === "^") c = "\\^";
  if (c === "\\") c = "\\\\";
  return s.replace(new RegExp(
    "^[" + c + "]+|[" + c + "]+$", "g"
  ), "");
}

chars = ".|]\\^";
for (c of chars) {
  s = c + "foo" + c + c + "oo" + c + c + c;
  console.log(s, "->", trim(s, c));
}

Parameter c is expected to be a character (a string of length 1).

As mentionned in the comments, it might be useful to support multiple characters, as it's quite common to trim multiple whitespace-like characters for example. To do this, MightyPork suggests to replace the ifs with the following line of code:

c = c.replace(/[-/\\^$*+?.()|[\]{}]/g, '\\$&');

This part [-/\\^$*+?.()|[\]{}] is a set of special characters in regular expression syntax, and $& is a placeholder which stands for the matching character, meaning that the replace function escapes special characters. Try in your browser console:

> "{[hello]}".replace(/[-/\\^$*+?.()|[\]{}]/g, '\\$&')
"\{\[hello\]\}"

If I understood well, you want to remove a specific character only if it is at the beginning or at the end of the string (ex: ||fo||oo|||| should become foo||oo). You can create an ad hoc function as follows:

function trimChar(string, charToRemove) {
    while(string.charAt(0)==charToRemove) {
        string = string.substring(1);
    }

    while(string.charAt(string.length-1)==charToRemove) {
        string = string.substring(0,string.length-1);
    }

    return string;
}

I tested this function with the code below:

var str = "|f|oo||";
$( "#original" ).html( "Original String: '" + str + "'" );
$( "#trimmed" ).html( "Trimmed: '" + trimChar(str, "|") + "'" );

Update: Was curious around the performance of different solutions and so I've updated a basic benchmark here: https://www.measurethat.net/Benchmarks/Show/12738/0/trimming-leadingtrailing-characters

Some interesting and unexpected results running under Chrome. https://www.measurethat.net/Benchmarks/ShowResult/182877

+-----------------------------------+-----------------------+
| Test name                         | Executions per second |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------+
| Index Version (Jason Larke)       | 949979.7 Ops/sec      |
| Substring Version (Pho3niX83)     | 197548.9 Ops/sec      |
| Regex Version (leaf)              | 107357.2 Ops/sec      |
| Boolean Filter Version (mbaer3000)| 94162.3 Ops/sec       |
| Spread Version (Robin F.)         | 4242.8 Ops/sec        |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------+

Please note; tests were carried out on only a single test string (with both leading and trailing characters that needed trimming). In addition, this benchmark only gives an indication of raw speed; other factors like memory usage are also important to consider.

---

If you're dealing with longer strings I believe this should outperform most of the other options by reducing the number of allocated strings to either zero or one:

function trim(str, ch) {
    var start = 0, 
        end = str.length;

    while(start < end && str[start] === ch)
        ++start;

    while(end > start && str[end - 1] === ch)
        --end;

    return (start > 0 || end < str.length) ? str.substring(start, end) : str;
}

// Usage:
trim('|hello|world|', '|'); // => 'hello|world'

Or if you want to trim from a set of multiple characters:

function trimAny(str, chars) {
    var start = 0, 
        end = str.length;

    while(start < end && chars.indexOf(str[start]) >= 0)
        ++start;

    while(end > start && chars.indexOf(str[end - 1]) >= 0)
        --end;

    return (start > 0 || end < str.length) ? str.substring(start, end) : str;
}

// Usage:
trimAny('|hello|world   ', [ '|', ' ' ]); // => 'hello|world'
// because '.indexOf' is used, you could also pass a string for the 2nd parameter:
trimAny('|hello| world  ', '| '); // => 'hello|world'

EDIT: For fun, trim words (rather than individual characters)

// Helper function to detect if a string contains another string
//     at a specific position. 
// Equivalent to using `str.indexOf(substr, pos) === pos` but *should* be more efficient on longer strings as it can exit early (needs benchmarks to back this up).
function hasSubstringAt(str, substr, pos) {
    var idx = 0, len = substr.length;

    for (var max = str.length; idx < len; ++idx) {
        if ((pos + idx) >= max || str[pos + idx] != substr[idx])
            break;
    }

    return idx === len;
}

function trimWord(str, word) {
    var start = 0,
        end = str.length,
        len = word.length;

    while (start < end && hasSubstringAt(str, word, start))
        start += word.length;

    while (end > start && hasSubstringAt(str, word, end - len))
        end -= word.length

    return (start > 0 || end < str.length) ? str.substring(start, end) : str;
}

// Usage:
trimWord('blahrealmessageblah', 'blah');

You can use a regular expression such as:

var x = "|f|oo||";
var y = x.replace(/^\|+|\|+$/g, "");
alert(y); // f|oo

UPDATE:

Should you wish to generalize this into a function, you can do the following:

var escapeRegExp = function(strToEscape) {
    // Escape special characters for use in a regular expression
    return strToEscape.replace(/[\-\[\]\/\{\}\(\)\*\+\?\.\\\^\$\|]/g, "\\$&");
};

var trimChar = function(origString, charToTrim) {
    charToTrim = escapeRegExp(charToTrim);
    var regEx = new RegExp("^[" + charToTrim + "]+|[" + charToTrim + "]+$", "g");
    return origString.replace(regEx, "");
};

var x = "|f|oo||";
var y = trimChar(x, "|");
alert(y); // f|oo

A regex-less version which is easy on the eye:

const trim = (str, chars) => str.split(chars).filter(Boolean).join(chars);

For use cases where we're certain that there's no repetition of the chars off the edges.

to keep this question up to date:

here is an approach i'd choose over the regex function using the ES6 spread operator.

function trimByChar(string, character) {
  const first = [...string].findIndex(char => char !== character);
  const last = [...string].reverse().findIndex(char => char !== character);
  return string.substring(first, string.length - last);
}

Improved version after @fabian 's comment (can handle strings containing the same character only)

function trimByChar1(string, character) {
  const arr = Array.from(string);
  const first = arr.findIndex(char => char !== character);
  const last = arr.reverse().findIndex(char => char !== character);
  return (first === -1 && last === -1) ? '' : string.substring(first, string.length - last);
}