JavaScript regex for patterns starting with special characters [duplicate] - javascript

Hi all I tried to create some regex with random value.
var data = "demo purpose?"; **OR** var data = "demo purpose";
var sentence = "can I put these app as demo purpose?";
var re = new RegExp("\\b(" + data + ")\\b", "g");
console.log(sentence.match(re)); // output ["demo purpose"]
In variable data have two different value demo purpose? & demo purpose with only question mark. Both console out are same please any one Give me hint what should i do in these case.
-
Thank you

you need to escape ? (i.e. write \\?) or else it would be interpreted as a quantifier in regex.
Furthermore, the \\b is not really necessary because it tries to match a non blank char in which case there is nothing behind demo purpose? so sentence.match(new RegExp("\\b(demo purpose\\?)\\b", "g")) would return null.
If you want randomness, use Math.random. Make an array and get an random integer or 0 or 1 (with Math.floor) as the index.

In order to pass variables into JS regex when using constructor notation, you need to escape all characters that act as regex special characters (quantifiers, group delimiters, etc.).
The escape function is available at MDN Web site:
function escapeRegExp(string){
return string.replace(/[.*+?^${}()|[\]\\]/g, "\\$&");
}
Note also, that \b is a word boundary, and it prevents from matching the strings you need as ? is a non-word character. If you do not need to match word boundaries, remove \b. If you need to check if the search word is a whole word, use (?:^|\W) at the beginning and (?!\w) at the end and use exec rather than match to obtain access to the captured group 1.
So, your code will become:
function escapeRegExp(string){
return string.replace(/[.*+?^${}()|[\]\\]/g, "\\$&");
}
var data = "demo purpose?";
var sentence = "can I put these app as demo purpose?";
var re = new RegExp("(?:^|\\W)(" + escapeRegExp(data) + ")(?!\\w)", "g");
while ((m = re.exec(sentence)) !== null) {
console.log(m[1]); // output ["demo purpose?"]
}
If you search for emo purpose?, no result will be returned since there will be no match.

This
var data = "demo purpose?"; // **OR** var data = "demo purpose";
var sentence = "can I put these app as demo purpose?";
var re = new RegExp(/demo purpose\?/, "g");
console.log(sentence.match(re)); // output ["demo purpose?"]
return ["demo purpose?"],
changing RegExp("xxx", "g"); to RegExp(/xxx/, "g");
You can do
var data = /demo purpose\?/; // **OR** var data = "demo purpose";
var sentence = "can I put these app as demo purpose?";
var re = new RegExp(data, "g");
console.log(sentence.match(re));
and you will get the same output

Related

How to put a variable in my JS regular expression? [duplicate]

I want to add a (variable) tag to values with regex, the pattern works fine with PHP but I have troubles implementing it into JavaScript.
The pattern is (value is the variable):
/(?!(?:[^<]+>|[^>]+<\/a>))\b(value)\b/is
I escaped the backslashes:
var str = $("#div").html();
var regex = "/(?!(?:[^<]+>|[^>]+<\\/a>))\\b(" + value + ")\\b/is";
$("#div").html(str.replace(regex, "" + value + ""));
But this seem not to be right, I logged the pattern and its exactly what it should be.
Any ideas?
To create the regex from a string, you have to use JavaScript's RegExp object.
If you also want to match/replace more than one time, then you must add the g (global match) flag. Here's an example:
var stringToGoIntoTheRegex = "abc";
var regex = new RegExp("#" + stringToGoIntoTheRegex + "#", "g");
// at this point, the line above is the same as: var regex = /#abc#/g;
var input = "Hello this is #abc# some #abc# stuff.";
var output = input.replace(regex, "!!");
alert(output); // Hello this is !! some !! stuff.
JSFiddle demo here.
In the general case, escape the string before using as regex:
Not every string is a valid regex, though: there are some speciall characters, like ( or [. To work around this issue, simply escape the string before turning it into a regex. A utility function for that goes in the sample below:
function escapeRegExp(stringToGoIntoTheRegex) {
return stringToGoIntoTheRegex.replace(/[-\/\\^$*+?.()|[\]{}]/g, '\\$&');
}
var stringToGoIntoTheRegex = escapeRegExp("abc"); // this is the only change from above
var regex = new RegExp("#" + stringToGoIntoTheRegex + "#", "g");
// at this point, the line above is the same as: var regex = /#abc#/g;
var input = "Hello this is #abc# some #abc# stuff.";
var output = input.replace(regex, "!!");
alert(output); // Hello this is !! some !! stuff.
JSFiddle demo here.
Note: the regex in the question uses the s modifier, which didn't exist at the time of the question, but does exist -- a s (dotall) flag/modifier in JavaScript -- today.
If you are trying to use a variable value in the expression, you must use the RegExp "constructor".
var regex = "(?!(?:[^<]+>|[^>]+<\/a>))\b(" + value + ")\b";
new RegExp(regex, "is")
I found I had to double slash the \b to get it working. For example to remove "1x" words from a string using a variable, I needed to use:
str = "1x";
var regex = new RegExp("\\b"+str+"\\b","g"); // same as inv.replace(/\b1x\b/g, "")
inv=inv.replace(regex, "");
You don't need the " to define a regular expression so just:
var regex = /(?!(?:[^<]+>|[^>]+<\/a>))\b(value)\b/is; // this is valid syntax
If value is a variable and you want a dynamic regular expression then you can't use this notation; use the alternative notation.
String.replace also accepts strings as input, so you can do "fox".replace("fox", "bear");
Alternative:
var regex = new RegExp("/(?!(?:[^<]+>|[^>]+<\/a>))\b(value)\b/", "is");
var regex = new RegExp("/(?!(?:[^<]+>|[^>]+<\/a>))\b(" + value + ")\b/", "is");
var regex = new RegExp("/(?!(?:[^<]+>|[^>]+<\/a>))\b(.*?)\b/", "is");
Keep in mind that if value contains regular expressions characters like (, [ and ? you will need to escape them.
I found this thread useful - so I thought I would add the answer to my own problem.
I wanted to edit a database configuration file (datastax cassandra) from a node application in javascript and for one of the settings in the file I needed to match on a string and then replace the line following it.
This was my solution.
dse_cassandra_yaml='/etc/dse/cassandra/cassandra.yaml'
// a) find the searchString and grab all text on the following line to it
// b) replace all next line text with a newString supplied to function
// note - leaves searchString text untouched
function replaceStringNextLine(file, searchString, newString) {
fs.readFile(file, 'utf-8', function(err, data){
if (err) throw err;
// need to use double escape '\\' when putting regex in strings !
var re = "\\s+(\\-\\s(.*)?)(?:\\s|$)";
var myRegExp = new RegExp(searchString + re, "g");
var match = myRegExp.exec(data);
var replaceThis = match[1];
var writeString = data.replace(replaceThis, newString);
fs.writeFile(file, writeString, 'utf-8', function (err) {
if (err) throw err;
console.log(file + ' updated');
});
});
}
searchString = "data_file_directories:"
newString = "- /mnt/cassandra/data"
replaceStringNextLine(dse_cassandra_yaml, searchString, newString );
After running, it will change the existing data directory setting to the new one:
config file before:
data_file_directories:
- /var/lib/cassandra/data
config file after:
data_file_directories:
- /mnt/cassandra/data
Much easier way: use template literals.
var variable = 'foo'
var expression = `.*${variable}.*`
var re = new RegExp(expression, 'g')
re.test('fdjklsffoodjkslfd') // true
re.test('fdjklsfdjkslfd') // false
Using string variable(s) content as part of a more complex composed regex expression (es6|ts)
This example will replace all urls using my-domain.com to my-other-domain (both are variables).
You can do dynamic regexs by combining string values and other regex expressions within a raw string template. Using String.raw will prevent javascript from escaping any character within your string values.
// Strings with some data
const domainStr = 'my-domain.com'
const newDomain = 'my-other-domain.com'
// Make sure your string is regex friendly
// This will replace dots for '\'.
const regexUrl = /\./gm;
const substr = `\\\.`;
const domain = domainStr.replace(regexUrl, substr);
// domain is a regex friendly string: 'my-domain\.com'
console.log('Regex expresion for domain', domain)
// HERE!!! You can 'assemble a complex regex using string pieces.
const re = new RegExp( String.raw `([\'|\"]https:\/\/)(${domain})(\S+[\'|\"])`, 'gm');
// now I'll use the regex expression groups to replace the domain
const domainSubst = `$1${newDomain}$3`;
// const page contains all the html text
const result = page.replace(re, domainSubst);
note: Don't forget to use regex101.com to create, test and export REGEX code.
var string = "Hi welcome to stack overflow"
var toSearch = "stack"
//case insensitive search
var result = string.search(new RegExp(toSearch, "i")) > 0 ? 'Matched' : 'notMatched'
https://jsfiddle.net/9f0mb6Lz/
Hope this helps

Remove string between two variables

I have a string which has some data with a few special characters, Need to remove the data between the desired special char in JavaScript.
The special char would be obtained in a variable.
var desiredChar = "~0~";
And Imagine this to be the Input string:
~0~1|0|20170807|45|111.00|~0~~1~1|0|20170807|50|666.00|~1~~2~1|0|20170807|55|111.00|~2~
So I'm supposed to remove the text in bold.
The desired output is supposed to be-
~1~1|0|20170807|50|666.00|~1~~2~1|0|20170807|55|111.00|~2~
I've tried using "Replace" and "Regex", but as the desired character is being passed in a variable and keeps changing I'm facing difficulties.
You can create your own regex based on whatever the bounding character(s) are that contain the text you want removed, and then replace any text that matches that regex with a blank string "".
The JS below should work for your use case (and it should work for multiple occurrences as well):
var originalText = "~0~1|0|20170807|45|111.00|~0~~1~1|0|20170807|50|666.00|~1~~2~1|0|20170807|55|111.00|~2~";
var desiredChar = "~0~";
var customRegex = new RegExp(desiredChar + ".*?" + desiredChar, "gi");
var processedText = originalText.replace(customRegex, "");
console.log(processedText);
You can build your regex from the constructor with a string input.
var desiredChar = "~0~";
// use the g flag in your regex if you want to remove all substrings between desiredChar
var myRegex = new Regex(desiredChar + ".*" + desiredChar, 'ig');
var testString = "~0~1|0|20170807|45|111.00|~0~~1~1|0|20170807|50|666.00|~1~~2~1|0|20170807|55|111.00|~2~";
testString = testString.replace(myRegex, "");
Given input string you can use .indexOf(), .lastIndexOf() and .slice().
Note, OR character | passed to RegExp constructor should be escaped to avoid RegExp created by passing string interpreting | character as OR | within resulting RegExp passed to .replace().
var desiredChar = "~0~";
var str = "~0~1|0|20170807|45|111.00|~0~~1~1|0|20170807|50|666.00|~1~~2~1|0|20170807|55|111.00|~2~";
var not = str.slice(str.indexOf(desiredChar), str.lastIndexOf(desiredChar) + desiredChar.length);
// escape OR `|`
var res = str.replace(new RegExp(not.replace(/[|]/g, "\\|")), "");
console.log(res)
You can use the RegExp object:
var regexstring = "whatever";
var regexp = new RegExp(regexstring, "gi");
var str = "whateverTest";
var str2 = str.replace(regexp, "other");
document.write(str2);
Then you can construct regexstring in any way you want.
You can read more about it at http://www.regular-expressions.info/javascript.html

Regex match cookie value and remove hyphens

I'm trying to extract out a group of words from a larger string/cookie that are separated by hyphens. I would like to replace the hyphens with a space and set to a variable. Javascript or jQuery.
As an example, the larger string has a name and value like this within it:
facility=34222%7CConner-Department-Store;
(notice the leading "C")
So first, I need to match()/find facility=34222%7CConner-Department-Store; with regex. Then break it down to "Conner Department Store"
var cookie = document.cookie;
var facilityValue = cookie.match( REGEX ); ??
var test = "store=874635%7Csomethingelse;facility=34222%7CConner-Department-Store;store=874635%7Csomethingelse;";
var test2 = test.replace(/^(.*)facility=([^;]+)(.*)$/, function(matchedString, match1, match2, match3){
return decodeURIComponent(match2);
});
console.log( test2 );
console.log( test2.split('|')[1].replace(/[-]/g, ' ') );
If I understood it correctly, you want to make a phrase by getting all the words between hyphens and disallowing two successive Uppercase letters in a word, so I'd prefer using Regex in that case.
This is a Regex solution, that works dynamically with any cookies in the same format and extract the wanted sentence from it:
var matches = str.match(/([A-Z][a-z]+)-?/g);
console.log(matches.map(function(m) {
return m.replace('-', '');
}).join(" "));
Demo:
var str = "facility=34222%7CConner-Department-Store;";
var matches = str.match(/([A-Z][a-z]+)-?/g);
console.log(matches.map(function(m) {
return m.replace('-', '');
}).join(" "));
Explanation:
Use this Regex (/([A-Z][a-z]+)-?/g to match the words between -.
Replace any - occurence in the matched words.
Then just join these matches array with white space.
Ok,
first, you should decode this string as follows:
var str = "facility=34222%7CConner-Department-Store;"
var decoded = decodeURIComponent(str);
// decoded = "facility=34222|Conner-Department-Store;"
Then you have multiple possibilities to split up this string.
The easiest way is to use substring()
var solution1 = decoded.substring(decoded.indexOf('|') + 1, decoded.length)
// solution1 = "Conner-Department-Store;"
solution1 = solution1.replace('-', ' ');
// solution1 = "Conner Department Store;"
As you can see, substring(arg1, arg2) returns the string, starting at index arg1 and ending at index arg2. See Full Documentation here
If you want to cut the last ; just set decoded.length - 1 as arg2 in the snippet above.
decoded.substring(decoded.indexOf('|') + 1, decoded.length - 1)
//returns "Conner-Department-Store"
or all above in just one line:
decoded.substring(decoded.indexOf('|') + 1, decoded.length - 1).replace('-', ' ')
If you want still to use a regular Expression to retrieve (perhaps more) data out of the string, you could use something similar to this snippet:
var solution2 = "";
var regEx= /([A-Za-z]*)=([0-9]*)\|(\S[^:\/?#\[\]\#\;\,']*)/;
if (regEx.test(decoded)) {
solution2 = decoded.match(regEx);
/* returns
[0:"facility=34222|Conner-Department-Store",
1:"facility",
2:"34222",
3:"Conner-Department-Store",
index:0,
input:"facility=34222|Conner-Department-Store;"
length:4] */
solution2 = solution2[3].replace('-', ' ');
// "Conner Department Store"
}
I have applied some rules for the regex to work, feel free to modify them according your needs.
facility can be any Word built with alphabetical characters lower and uppercase (no other chars) at any length
= needs to be the char =
34222 can be any number but no other characters
| needs to be the char |
Conner-Department-Store can be any characters except one of the following (reserved delimiters): :/?#[]#;,'
Hope this helps :)
edit: to find only the part
facility=34222%7CConner-Department-Store; just modify the regex to
match facility= instead of ([A-z]*)=:
/(facility)=([0-9]*)\|(\S[^:\/?#\[\]\#\;\,']*)/
You can use cookies.js, a mini framework from MDN (Mozilla Developer Network).
Simply include the cookies.js file in your application, and write:
docCookies.getItem("Connor Department Store");

javascript regex Numbers and letters only

This should automatically remove characters NOT on my regex, but if I put in the string asdf sd %$##$, it doesnt remove anything, and if I put in this #sdf%#, it only removes the first character. I'm trying to make it remove any and all instances of those symbols/special characters (anything not on my regex), but its not working all the time. Thanks for any help:
function ohno(){
var pattern = new RegExp("[^a-zA-Z0-9]+");
var str = "#sdf%#"; //"asdf sd %$##$" // Try both
str = str.replace(pattern,' ');
document.getElementById('msg').innerHTML = str;
}
You need the g flag to remove more than one match:
var pattern = new RegExp("[^a-zA-Z0-9]+", "g");
Note that it would be more efficient and readable to use a regex literal instead of the RegExp constructor:
var pattern = /[^a-zA-Z0-9]+/g;
reference
You need to set global using "g", The flag indicates that the regular expression should be tested against all possible matches in a string.
new RegExp("[^a-zA-Z0-9]+", "g")
Reference
var pattern = new RegExp("[^a-zA-Z0-9]+", "g");
var str = "#sdf%#"; //"asdf sd %$##$" // Try both
str = str.replace(pattern,' ');
alert(str)

Passing Parameter into function match

I am using the function match for a search engine, so whenever a user types a search-string I take that string and use the match function on an array containing country names, but it doesn't seem to work.
For example if I do :
var string = "algeria";
var res = string.match(/alge/g); //alge is what the user would have typed in the search bar
alert(res);
I get a string res = "alge": //thus verifying that alge exists in algeria
But if I do this, it returns null, why? and how can I make it work?
var regex = "/alge/g";
var string = "algeria";
var res = string.match(regex);
alert(res);
To make a regex from a string, you need to create a RegExp object:
var regex = new RegExp("alge", "g");
(Beware that unless your users will be typing actual regular expressions, you'll need to escape any characters that have special meaning within regular expressions - see Is there a RegExp.escape function in Javascript? for ways to do this.)
You don't need quotes around the regex:
var regex = /alge/g;
Remove the quotes around the regex.
var regex = /alge/g;
var string = "algeria";
var res = string.match(regex);
alert(res);
found the answer, the match function takes a regex object so have to do
var regex = new RegExp(string, "g");
var res = text.match(regex);
This works fine

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