# JavaScript, how to find a character in a string

> Learn how to find a character in a string in JavaScript using includes() to check if it is present and indexOf() to get the position of the first occurrence.

Author: [Flavio Copes](https://flaviocopes.com/about/) | Published: 2020-11-13 | Topics: [JavaScript](https://flaviocopes.com/tags/js/) | Canonical: https://flaviocopes.com/how-to-find-character-string-javascript/

How do you find a character in a string, using [JavaScript](https://flaviocopes.com/javascript/)?

You have one easy way.

Every string has an `includes()` method that accepts one (or more) characters.

This method returns `true` if the string contains the character, and `false` if not:

```js
'a nice string'.includes('a') //true
'a nice string'.includes('b') //false
```

If you need to find the exact position of the letter in the string, however, you need to use the `indexOf()` method:

```js
'a nice string'.indexOf('a') //0
'a nice string'.indexOf('c') //4
```

If there are more than one occurrence, this method returns the position of the first one it finds, starting from the left.