I wrote the replace function to look for string pattern and replace it with another string pattern. The function allows for multiple occurances of a search string - replacing its with another string. The & symbol gave me alittle trouble, so a special case was developed to deal with it.
function replace(stPhrase,stPattern,stInsert) { var stBuffer; stArray=stPhrase.split(stPattern); stBuffer=""; for(var i=0; i<stArray.length; i++) { if(i<stArray.length-1) { if((stInsert=='lt;')||(stInsert=='gt;')) { stBuffer+=stArray[i]+"&"+stInsert; } else { stBuffer+=stArray[i]+stInsert; } } else { stBuffer+=stArray[i]; } } return stBuffer; }