Javascript Split Without Losing Character

I want to split certain text using JavaScript. The text looks like: 9:30 pm The user did action A. 10:30 pm Welcome, user John Doe. 11:30 am Messaged user John Doe Now, I want t

Solution 1:

Use a lookahead:

var split = journals.split(/(?=\b\d+:)/);

Solution 2:

Wouldn't it be easier to split on the newline?

var split = journals.split(/\n\n/);

EDIT

Try normalizing the string into a format that you can use:

/*
 Non-normalized string
*/var str ="9:30 pm\nThe user did action A.10:30 pm\nWelcome, user John Doe.\n\n\n11:30 am\nMessaged user John Doe\n12:30 pm\nThe user did something else.";

/*
 Normalizing into a specific format. TIMESTAMP\nDESCRIPTION\n\n.
 Then removing extraneous leading \n\n
*/

str = str.replace(/\n*([0-9]{1,2}:[0-9]{2} (a|p)m)\n*/g, "\n\n$1\n").replace(/^\n+/, "");

var events = str.split(/\n\n/);

/*
 The following should display an array of strings of the form:
 TIMESTAMP\nDESCRIPTION
*/
console.log(events); 

/*
 Loop through events and split on single newline to get timestamp and description
*/for(var i =0; i < events.length; i++) {
   var event = events[i];
   var eventData = event.split(/\n/);
   var time = eventData[0];
   var description = eventData[1];
   console.log(time, description);
}