How to build an array from a string in javascript?

Question

I am trying to grab some values out of a sting that looks like this:

W1:0.687268668116, URML:0.126432054521, MH:0.125022031608, W2:0.017801539275, S3:0.00869514129605, PC1:0.00616885024382, S5L:0.0058163445156, RM1L:0.00540508783268, C2L:0.00534633687797, S4L:0.00475882733094, S2L:0.00346630632748

I want to make an array of all the keys and another array of all the values i.e. [W1, URML, MH…] and [0.687268668116, 0.126432054521...] I have this snippet that does the trick, but only for the first value:

var foo = str.substring(str.indexOf(":") + 1);

Answer 1

Use split().
Demo here: http://jsfiddle.net/y9JNU/

var keys = [];
var values = [];

str.split(', ').forEach(function(pair) {
  pair = pair.split(':');
  keys.push(pair[0]);
  values.push(pair[1]);
});

---

Without forEach() (IE < 9):

var keys = [];
var values = [];
var pairs = str.split(', ');

for (var i = 0, n = pairs.length; i < n; i++) {
  var pair = pairs[i].split(':');
  keys.push(pair[0]);
  values.push(pair[1]);
};