Array to string containing comma's - JavaScript

Question

Ok so I'm writing a script that includes whole sentences, but whole sentences can contain comma's. Due to the way the script works the array has to be turned into a string at least once. So when that happens the comma's start conflicting with each other once I split the string back into the original values. I can't quite figure out how to fix this and i've been looking all over with no success so far. I'm working with chrome plugins, this is a small example of what happens: ``` var Data = ["This is a normal string", "This string, will cause a conflict.", "This string should be normal"]; // The data gets sent to a background script, in string form and comes back as this var Data = "This is a normal string, This string, will cause a conflict., This string should be normal"; Data = Data.split(","); // Results in 4 positions instead of 3 Data = ["This is a normal string", "This string"," will cause a conflict.", "This string should be normal"]; ```

Accepted Answer

When you call `.join()` on the array in order to convert it to a string yo ucan specify the delimiter.

For example:

```
["Hello,","World"].join("%%%"); // "Hello,%%%World"
```

You can then split it based on `"%%%"` (`.split("%%%")`) in order to break it apart again.

That said, if you want to apply an action to each element of an array (every line) you probably do not have to call `.join` and then `.split` it again. Instead, you can use array methods, for example:

```
 var asLower = ["Hello","World"].map(function(line){ return line.toLowerCase(); });
 // as Lower now contains the items in lower case
```

Alternatively, if your goal is serialization instead of processing - you should not "roll your own" serialization and use the built in `JSON.parse` and `JSON.stringify` methods like h2oooooo suggested.

Array to string containing comma's - JavaScript

Solution

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