How to check if one string contains another substring in JavaScript?

String.prototype.indexOf() or String.prototype.search()?!

As others have already mentioned, JavaScript strings have both an indexOf and search method.

The key difference between both, is that indexOf is for plain substrings only, whereas search also supports regular expressions. Of course, an upside of using indexOf is that it's faster.

See also In JavaScript, what is the difference between indexOf() and search()?.

Implementing your own String.prototype.contains() method

If you want to add your own contains method to every string, the best way to do it would be @zzzzBov's approach:

if (!String.prototype.contains) {
    String.prototype.contains = function (arg) {
        return !!~this.indexOf(arg);
    };
}

You would use it like this:

'Hello World'.contains('orl');

Implementing a custom utility library

It is generally frowned upon to add your own custom methods to standard objects in JavaScript, for example, because it might break forward compatibility.

If you really want your own contains method and/or other custom string methods, it's better to create your own utility library and add your custom string methods to that library:

var helper = {};

helper.string = {
    contains : function (haystack, needle) {
        return !!~haystack.indexOf(needle);
    },
    ...
};

You would use it like this:

helper.string.contains('Hello World', 'orl');

Using a third-party utility library

If you don't want to create your own custom helper library, there is - of course - always the option of using a third-party utility library. As mentioned by @nachtigall, the most popular ones are Lodash and Underscore.js.

In Lodash, you could use _.includes(), which you use like this:

_.includes('Hello World', 'orl');

In Underscore.js, you could use _.str.include(), which you use like this :

_.str.include('Hello World', 'orl');

One more function, search:

var str = "Stack Overflow";
var n = str.search("Overflow");
if (n != -1)
    alert('String exists')

A common way to write a contains method in JavaScript is:

if (!String.prototype.contains) {
    String.prototype.contains = function (arg) {
        return !!~this.indexOf(arg);
    };
}

The bitwise negation operator (~) is used to turn -1 into 0 (falsey), and all other values will be non-zero (truthy).

The double boolean negation operators are used to cast the number into a boolean.

With ECMAScript 2015, we can use includes()

let s = "foo";
console.log(s.includes("oo"));

String.prototype.includes() was introduced in ES6.

Determines whether one string may be found within another string, returning true or false as appropriate.

Syntax

var contained = str.includes(searchString [, position]);  

Parameters

searchString

A string to be searched for within this string.

position

The position in this string at which to begin searching for searchString defaults to 0.

Example

var str = "To be, or not to be, that is the question.";

console.log(str.includes("To be"));    // true
console.log(str.includes("question")); // true
console.log(str.includes("To be", 1)); // false  

Note

This may require ES6 shim in older browsers.

In ES5

var s = "foo";
alert(s.indexOf("oo") > -1);

In ES6 there are three new methods: includes(), startsWith(), endsWith().

var msg = "Hello world!";

console.log(msg.startsWith("Hello"));       // true
console.log(msg.endsWith("!"));             // true
console.log(msg.includes("o"));             // true

console.log(msg.startsWith("o", 4));        // true
console.log(msg.endsWith("o", 8));          // true
console.log(msg.includes("o", 8));          // false

You can easily add a contains method to String with this statement:

String.prototype.contains = function(it) { return this.indexOf(it) != -1; };

Note: see the comments below for a valid argument for not using this. My advice: use your own judgement.

Alternatively:

if (typeof String.prototype.contains === 'undefined') { String.prototype.contains = function(it) { return this.indexOf(it) != -1; }; }

There are multiple ways to do this. But most of the time, you will be fine using the indexOf() method. indexOf() returns the position of the string passed to it as argument and -1 if the string on which it was called doesn't contain the argument string.

var str = "A cat and a dog";
str.indexOf("cat"); // returns 2
str.indexOf("panda"); // returns -1

ES6 contains String.prototype.includes.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/String/includes

Example

var a  = "Test String";

if(a.search("ring")!=-1){
     //exist 
} else {
     //not found 
}

You were looking for .indexOf^MDN.

indexOf is going to return an index to the matched substring. The index will correlate to where the substring starts. If there is no match, a -1 is returned. Here is a simple demo of that concept:

var str = "Hello World"; // For example, lets search this string,
var term = "World"; // for the term "World",
var index = str.indexOf(term); // and get its index.
if (index != -1) { // If the index is not -1 then the term was matched in the string,
  alert(index); // and we can do some work based on that logic. (6 is alerted)
}

You can also do something like this

var snipers = " Vasily Zaytsev, Simo Hayha, Chris Kyle";
var me = "Josip";

function printSniperStatus (person) {
    if (aContainsB(snipers, person)) {
        console.log(person + " is a sniper.");
    } else {
        console.log(person + " is NOT a sniper.");
    }
}

// Outputs: "Josip is NOT a sniper."
printSniperStatus(me);

You can use indexOf which returns the position of the string. If not found, it will return -1. So if the method returns -1 string doesn't exist

var string = "This is a test string",
substring = "test";
if(string.indexOf(substring) >= 0)
  //substring exist
else
  //substring does not exist

Instead of using code snippets found here and there on the web, you can also use a well-tested and documented library. Two Options I would recommend:

1st option: Use Lodash: It has an includes method:

_.includes('foobar', 'ob');
// → true

Lodash is the most popular javascript library dependency for npm and has loads of handy javascript utility methods. So for many projects you would want this anyway ;-)

2nd option: Or use Underscore.string: It has an include method:

_.str.include('foobar', 'ob');
// → true

Here is the description of Underscore.string, it just adds 9kb but gives you all the advantages a well-tested and documented library has over copy'n'paste code snippets:

Underscore.string is JavaScript library for comfortable manipulation with strings, extension for Underscore.js inspired by Prototype.js, Right.js, Underscore and beautiful Ruby language.

Underscore.string provides you several useful functions: capitalize, clean, includes, count, escapeHTML, unescapeHTML, insert, splice, startsWith, endsWith, titleize, trim, truncate and so on.

Note well, Underscore.string is influenced by Underscore.js but can be used without it.

Last not Least: With JavaScript version ES6 comes an built-in includes method:

'foobar'.includes('ob');
// → true

Most modern browsers already support it, have an eye on the ES6 compatibility table.

If you were looking for an alternative to write the ugly -1 check, you prepend a ~ tilde instead.

if (~haystack.indexOf('needle')) alert('found');

Joe Zimmerman - you'll see that using ~ on -1 converts it to 0. The number 0 is a falsey value, meaning that it will evaluate to false when converted to a Boolean. That might not seem like a big insight at first, but remember functions like indexOf will return -1 when the query is not found. This means that instead of writing something similar to this:

if (someStr.indexOf("a") >= 0) {
  // Found it
} else  {
  // Not Found
}

You can now have fewer characters in your code so you can write it like this:

if (~someStr.indexOf("a")) {
  // Found it
} else  {
  // Not Found
}

More details here

Try this:

if ('Hello, World!'.indexOf('orl') !== -1)
    alert("The string 'Hello World' contains the substring 'orl'!");
else
    alert("The string 'Hello World' does not contain the substring 'orl'!");

Here is an example: jsfiddle

You can use jQuery's :contains selector.

$("div:contains('John')")

Check it here: contains-selector

I know that best way is str.indexOf(s) !== -1; http://hayageek.com/javascript-string-contains/

I suggest another way(str.replace(s1, "") !== str):

var str = "Hello World!", s1 = "ello", s2 = "elloo";
alert(str.replace(s1, "") !== str);
alert(str.replace(s2, "") !== str);

Simple workaround

if (!String.prototype.contains) {
  String.prototype.contains= function() {
    return String.prototype.indexOf.apply(this, arguments) !== -1;
  };
}

you can use in the following way

"hello".contains("he") // true
"hello world".contains("lo w")//true
"hello world".contains("lo wa")//false
"hello world".contains(" ")//true
"hello world".contains("  ")//false

MDN reference

To collect some kind of valid solutions:

var stringVariable = "some text";
var findString = "text";

//using `indexOf()`
var containResult = stringVariable.indexOf(findString) != -1;
console.log(containResult);

//using `lastIndexOf()`
var containResult = stringVariable.lastIndexOf(findString) != -1;
console.log(containResult);

//using `search()`
var containResult = stringVariable.search(findString) != -1;
console.log(containResult);
     
//using `split()`
var containResult = stringVariable.split(findString)[0] != stringVariable;
console.log(containResult);

Update for 2015: string.includes has been added to JavaScript's next version, ES6:

"potato".includes("to");
> true

Note you may need to load es6-shim or similar to get this working on older browsers.

require('es6-shim')

JavaScript

 var str = "My big string contain apples and oranges";
 var n = str.indexOf("apples"); 
 alert(n); //will alert 22, -1 if not found

jQuery

  <p>My big string contain apples and oranges</p>
  alert($("p:contains(apples)")[0] != undefined); //will alert true if found

There is a sleek and better way to do this and it is using the (BitWise NOT) operator.

if(~"John".indexOf("J")) {
  alert("Found")
}
else {
  alert("Not Found");
}

The Bitwise Not converts "x" into -(x + 1) so, if the x turns out -1 from indexOf method.then it will be converted into -( -1 + 1) = -0 which is a falsy value .

This is a function to check if a substring is existing in a string or not:

function isStringMatch(str, str_to_match) {
    return (str.indexOf(str_to_match) > -1);
}

The easyest way is indeed using indexOf. To just check a string string for a substring substr you can use this method:

string = "asdf";
substr = "as";
alert(string.indexOf(substr) == -1 ? false : true);

As you wanted the function string.contains(), you can implement it yourself like this:

String.prototype.contains = function(test) {
    return this.indexOf(test) == -1 ? false : true;
};

Now you can use this ecen shorter method to check if a string contains a special substring:

string = "asdf";
alert(string.contains("as"));

Here is a JSFiddle as well.

If you don't like the !!~, etc. tricks, you can simply add +1 to the result of .indexOf(). This way if a string is not found, -1 + 1 = 0 will be falsy, 0.. + 1 = 1.. will be truthy:

if ("StackOverflow".indexOf("Stack") + 1 )
    alert('contains');
else 
    alert('does not contain');

Since the question is pretty popular, I thought I could add a little modern flavor to the code.

var allLinks = content.document.getElementsByTagName("a")
,   il       = allLinks.length
,   i        = 0
,   test
,   alrt;

while (i < il) {
    elm  = allLinks[i++];
    test = elm.getAttribute("class");

    if (test.indexOf("title") > -1)
        console.log(elm), foundLinks++;
}
alrt = foundLinks ? "Found " + foundLinks + " title class" : "No title class found";
console.log(alrt);

BTW, the correct answer is misspelling indexOf or the non-standard String.contains. Loading an external library (especially if the code is written in pure JavaScript) or messing with String.prototype or using a regular expression is a little overkill.

JavaScript code to use the contains method in an array:

<html>
    <head>
        <h2>Use of contains() method</h2>
        <script>
            Array.prototype.contains = function (element) {
                for (var i = 0; i < this.length; i++) {
                    if (this[i] == element) {
                        return true;
                    }
                }
                return false;
            }
            arr1 = ["Rose", "India", "Technologies"];
            document.write("The condition is "+arr1.contains("India")+"<br>");
        </script>
    </head>

    <b>[If the specified element is present in the array, it returns true otherwise
    returns false.]</b>

</html>

In the given code the contains method determines whether the specified element is present in the array or not. If the specified element is present in the array, it returns true, otherwise it returns false.