Tipify normalize-line-endings

content/snippets/js/s/normalize-line-endings.md

@@ -1,23 +1,31 @@
 ---
-title: Normalize line endings
-type: snippet
+title: Normalize line endings in a JavaScript string
+shortTitle: Normalize line endings
+type: tip
 language: javascript
 tags: [string,regexp]
 cover: red-light
-dateModified: 2020-10-21
+excerpt: Having trouble with inconsistent line endings in your strings? Normalize them with this handy JavaScript function!
+dateModified: 2024-05-24
 ---
 
-Normalizes line endings in a string.
+Historically, different operating systems have used **different characters to represent line endings** in text files. For example, **Windows** uses `'\r\n'` (carriage return + line feed), **Unix-like systems** use `'\n'` (line feed), and **older Mac systems** used `'\r'` (carriage return). All of these differences can cause issues when working with text files or strings.
 
-- Use `String.prototype.replace()` and a regular expression to match and replace line endings with the `normalized` version.
-- Omit the second argument, `normalized`, to use the default value of `'\r\n'`.
+**Normalization** is the process of converting all line endings in a string to a consistent format. Often, you'll want to convert all line endings to a specific format, such as `'\r\n'` or `'\n'`.
+
+Luckily, all you need to do is use `String.prototype.replace()` with a **regular expression** to match and replace line endings. As the sequences of characters are known and ordered consistently, you need only check for an **optional carriage return** (`\r?`) **followed by a line feed** (`\n`).
 
 ```js
-const normalizeLineEndings = (str, normalized = '\r\n') =>
+const normalizeLineEndings = (str, normalized = '\n') =>
   str.replace(/\r?\n/g, normalized);
 
 normalizeLineEndings('This\r\nis a\nmultiline\nstring.\r\n');
-// 'This\r\nis a\r\nmultiline\r\nstring.\r\n'
-normalizeLineEndings('This\r\nis a\nmultiline\nstring.\r\n', '\n');
 // 'This\nis a\nmultiline\nstring.\n'
+
+normalizeLineEndings('This\r\nis a\nmultiline\nstring.\r\n', '\r\n');
+// 'This\r\nis a\r\nmultiline\r\nstring.\r\n'
 ```
+
+> [!NOTE]
+>
+> As the much older Mac systems are no longer in common use, you can safely **ignore the standalone carriage return** (`\r`) character in most cases. However, if you need to support these systems, you can modify the regular expression to include it: `/\r?\n|\r/g`.