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String.prototype.lastIndexOf()

The lastIndexOf() method, given one argument: a substring to search for, searches the entire calling string, and returns the index of the last occurrence of the specified substring. Given a second argument: a number, the method returns the last occurrence of the specified substring at an index less than or equal to the specified number.

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Syntax

lastIndexOf(searchString)
lastIndexOf(searchString, position)

Parameters

searchString

Substring to search for.

If the method is called with no arguments, searchString is coerced to "undefined". Therefore,'undefined'.lastIndexOf() returns 0 — because the substring undefined is found at position 0 in the string undefined. But 'undefine'.lastIndexOf(), returns -1 — because the substring undefined is not found in the string undefine.

position Optional

The method returns the index of the last occurrence of the specified substring at a position less than or equal to position, which defaults to +Infinity. If position is greater than the length of the calling string, the method searches the entire string. If position is less than 0, the behavior is the same as for 0 — that is, the method looks for the specified substring only at index 0.

  • 'hello world hello'.lastIndexOf('world', 4) returns -1 — because, while the substring world does occurs at index 6, that position is not less than or equal to 4.
  • 'hello world hello'.lastIndexOf('hello', 99) returns 12 — because the last occurrence of hello at a position less than or equal to 99 is at position 12.
  • 'hello world hello'.lastIndexOf('hello', 0) and 'hello world hello'.lastIndexOf('hello', -5) both return 0 — because both cause the method to only look for hello at index 0.

Return value

The index of the last occurrence of searchString found, or -1 if not found.

Description

Strings are zero-indexed: The index of a string's first character is 0, and the index of a string's last character is the length of the string minus 1.

'canal'.lastIndexOf('a');     // returns 3
'canal'.lastIndexOf('a', 2);  // returns 1
'canal'.lastIndexOf('a', 0);  // returns -1
'canal'.lastIndexOf('x');     // returns -1
'canal'.lastIndexOf('c', -5); // returns 0
'canal'.lastIndexOf('c', 0);  // returns 0
'canal'.lastIndexOf('');      // returns 5
'canal'.lastIndexOf('', 2);   // returns 2

Case-sensitivity

The lastIndexOf() method is case sensitive. For example, the following expression returns -1:

'Blue Whale, Killer Whale'.lastIndexOf('blue'); // returns -1

Examples

Using indexOf() and lastIndexOf()

The following example uses indexOf() and lastIndexOf() to locate values in the string "Brave, Brave New World".

let anyString = 'Brave, Brave New World';

console.log('The index of the first "Brave" is ' + anyString.indexOf('Brave'));
// logs 0
console.log('The index of the last "Brave" is ' + anyString.lastIndexOf('Brave'));
// logs 7

Specifications

Browser compatibility

Desktop Mobile Server
Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari WebView Android Chrome Android Firefox for Android Opera Android Safari on IOS Samsung Internet Deno Node.js
lastIndexOf
1
12
1
6
3
1
1
18
4
10.1
1
1.0
1.0
0.10.0

See also

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https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/String/lastIndexOf