Starting from @stephen-sweriduk solution (that was the more interesting to me!), I have slightly modified it to make more generic and reusable:
/**
* Adapted from: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/650022/how-do-i-split-a-string-with-multiple-separators-in-javascript
*/
var StringUtils = {
/**
* Flatten a list of strings
* http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Flatten_a_list
*/
flatten : function(arr) {
var self=this;
return arr.reduce(function(acc, val) {
return acc.concat(val.constructor === Array ? self.flatten(val) : val);
},[]);
},
/**
* Recursively Traverse a list and apply a function to each item
* @param list array
* @param expression Expression to use in func
* @param func function of (item,expression) to apply expression to item
*
*/
traverseListFunc : function(list, expression, index, func) {
var self=this;
if(list[index]) {
if((list.constructor !== String) && (list[index].constructor === String))
(list[index] != func(list[index], expression)) ? list[index] = func(list[index], expression) : null;
(list[index].constructor === Array) ? self.traverseListFunc(list[index], expression, 0, func) : null;
(list.constructor === Array) ? self.traverseListFunc(list, expression, index+1, func) : null;
}
},
/**
* Recursively map function to string
* @param string
* @param expression Expression to apply to func
* @param function of (item, expressions[i])
*/
mapFuncToString : function(string, expressions, func) {
var self=this;
var list = [string];
for(var i=0, len=expressions.length; i<len; i++) {
self.traverseListFunc(list, expressions[i], 0, func);
}
return self.flatten(list);
},
/**
* Split a string
* @param splitters Array of characters to apply the split
*/
splitString : function(string, splitters) {
return this.mapFuncToString(string, splitters, function(item, expression) {
return item.split(expression);
})
},
}
and then
var stringToSplit = "people and_other/things";
var splitList = [" ", "_", "/"];
var splittedString=StringUtils.splitString(stringToSplit, splitList);
console.log(splitList, stringToSplit, splittedString);
that gives back as the original:
[ ' ', '_', '/' ] 'people and_other/things' [ 'people', 'and', 'other', 'things' ]