convert javascript comma separated string into an array

Watch out if you are aiming at integers, like 1,2,3,4,5. If you intend to use the elements of your array as integers and not as strings after splitting the string, consider converting them into such.

var str = "1,2,3,4,5,6";
var temp = new Array();
// this will return an array with strings "1", "2", etc.
temp = str.split(",");

adding a loop like this

for (a in temp ) {
    temp[a] = parseInt(temp[a], 10); // Explicitly include base as per Álvaro's comment
}

will return an array containing integers, and not strings.

Hmm split is dangerous imho as a string can always contain a comma, observe the following:

var myArr = "a,b,c,d,e,f,g,','";
result = myArr.split(',');

So how would you interperate that? and what do you WANT the result to be? an array with:

['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', '\'', '\''] or 
['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', ',']

even if you escape the comma you'd have a problem.

Quickly fiddled this together:

(function($) {
    $.extend({
        splitAttrString: function(theStr) {
            var attrs = [];

            var RefString = function(s) {
                this.value = s;
            };
            RefString.prototype.toString = function() {
                return this.value;
            };
            RefString.prototype.charAt = String.prototype.charAt;
            var data = new RefString(theStr);

            var getBlock = function(endChr, restString) {
                var block = '';
                var currChr = '';
                while ((currChr != endChr) && (restString.value !== '')) {
                    if (/'|"/.test(currChr)) {
                        block = $.trim(block) + getBlock(currChr, restString);
                    }
                    else if (/\{/.test(currChr)) {
                        block = $.trim(block) + getBlock('}', restString);
                    }
                    else if (/\[/.test(currChr)) {
                        block = $.trim(block) + getBlock(']', restString);
                    }
                    else {
                        block += currChr;
                    }
                    currChr = restString.charAt(0);
                    restString.value = restString.value.slice(1);
                }
                return $.trim(block);
            };

            do {
                var attr = getBlock(',', data);
                attrs.push(attr);
            }
            while (data.value !== '');
            return attrs;
        }
    });
})(jQuery);

Feel free to use / edit it :)

The split() method is used to split a string into an array of substrings, and returns the new array.

var array = string.split(',');

In javascript and PHP you have these two very powerful functions:

JS: String.split(String) Array.join(String);

PHP: explode(string,string) implode(string,array)

Pass you Comma Separated string into this function and it will return array , and if not comma separated string then will return null.

 function SplitTheString(CommaSepStr) {
       var ResultArray = null; 

        if (CommaSepStr!= null) {
            var SplitChars = ',';
            if (CommaSepStr.indexOf(SplitChars) >= 0) {
                ResultArray = CommaSepStr.split(SplitChars);

            }
        }
       return ResultArray ;
    }

I know this question has been answered for quite a while, but I thought that my contribution would be beneficial to others researching this topic...

Here is a function that will convert a string to an array, even if there is only one item in the list (no separator character):

function listToAray(fullString, separator) {
  var fullArray = [];

  if (fullString !== undefined) {
    if (fullString.indexOf(separator) == -1) {
      fullAray.push(fullString);
    } else {
      fullArray = fullString.split(separator);
    }
  }

  return fullArray;
}

Use it like this:

var myString = 'alpha,bravo,charlie,delta';
var myArray = listToArray(myString, ',');
myArray[2]; // charlie

var yourString = 'echo';
var yourArray = listToArray(yourString, ',');
yourArray[0]; // echo

I created this function because split throws out an error if there is no separator character in the string (only one item)

note that:

 var a = "";
var x = new Array();
x = a.split(",");
alert(x.length);

will alert 1