• JavaScript Tutorial
• JavaScript String Object
• Declaring a string
• JavaScript String Properties
• String length property
• String constructor property
• String prototype property
• JavaScript String Methods
• charAt() method
• charCodeAt() method
• concat() method
• fromCharCode() method
• indexOf() method
• lastIndexOf() method
• slice() method
• split() method
• substr() method
• substring() method
• toLowerCase() method
• toUpperCase() method
• Other JavaScript Objects
• JS Array Object
• JS Number Object
• JS RegExp Object

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JavaScript substring() Method

This tutorial introduces the substring() method, from the JavaScript String object. The substring() method is designed to extract a substring of text from another string, while not modifying the original string. The substring() method takes at least one argument (to take a substring ending with the end of the original string), and an optional second argument indicating the position index at which the extracted substring should stop.

Related string method:
The substr() method extracts a substring from a fixed start index and relative string length.

Using the substring() Method with One Argument

In the script below, we will extract a substring using only one argument:

By only passing one argument (the start position index), the substring() method extracts characters until it reaches the end of the string on which it is applied:

In this respect, the substring() method behaves exactly like the substr() method, when only the start position index is passed.

Using the substring() Method with Two Arguments

The substring() method accepts a second optional argument: it indicates the point at which it should stop extracting characters (in other words, the second argument indicates the end position index).

JavaScript's charAt(), substr(), and substring() Methods

The JavaScript string objects includes three methods that allow you to extract substrings of text: the charAt() method (for a single character), the substr() method (fixed start index and relative length), and the substring() method (for a fixed start and end index positions).

The script below how to obtain the same result from each of the three methods:

var carter = "I learn JavaScript.";
// Let's extract the "J" in "JavaScript"
var outCode;
outCode  = carter.charAt(8) +"\n";
outCode += carter.substr(8,1) +"\n";
outCode += carter.substring(8,9);
alert( outCode );

After storing the results, separated by a new line character, the last line of code produces the following result:

Test the substring() Method

Interactively test the substring() method by editing the JavaScript code below and clicking the Test substring() Method button.

var carter = "I learn JavaScript."; alert( carter.substring(8,12) );Test substring() Method

Browser support for JavaScript substring() method