How to deal with searching strings and array of strings in JS

Question

_.get(params, "_q") outputs either string or array of strings. On my current code, when I type for example "hello, there", it translates to array of strings and as a result is says something like h.get(...).trim is not a function.

Pls see my current code below. and what i've tried so far. Is my tried code good or is there a better way using modern JS?

Note: _ is from lodash.

Result of console.log(params) when typing "hello, there"

{
    "_q": [
        "hello",
        " there "
    ]
}

Result of console.log(params) when typing "hello"

{
    "_q": "hello"
}

Result of console.log(params) when typing "hello there"

{
    "_q": "hello there"
}

Current code

 let where = {};

  if (_.get(params, "_q")) {
    where._q = _.get(params, "_q").trim();
  }

What fix I have tried so far

  const _q = _.get(params, "_q");
  if (_q) {
    where._q = []
      .concat(_q)
      .map((str) => str.split(",").map((str) => str.trim()))
      .flat();
  }

Answer 1

I see, the "input", e.g. the "_q" property value can be either a single string, or an array of strings.

I'd suggest plopping params._q into an array and flatten it first, then map the strings in the array to a new array of trimmed string values.

Example:

[get(params, "_q")].flat().map((el) => el.trim())

Given:

• Array of strings

  const params = {
    _q: ["hello", " there "]
  };
  

  [get(params, "_q")]       // [["hello", " there "]]
    .flat()                 // ["hello", " there "]
    .map((el) => el.trim()) // ["hello", "there"]
  

• String

  const params = {
    _q: " hello there "
  };
  

  [get(params, "_q")]       // [" hello there "]
    .flat()                 // [" hello there "]
    .map((el) => el.trim()) // ["hello there"]
  

Demo

const params = {
  _q: ["hello", " there "]
};

console.log([params._q].flat().map((el) => el.trim())); // ["hello", "there"]