Develop Reference

JS Regex for a string contains fixed number of letters

Let's say I need to have minimum 5 letters in a string not requiring that they are subsequent. The regex below checks subsequent letters
[A-Za-z]{5,}
So, "aaaaa" -- true, but "aaa1aa" -- false.
What is the regex to leave the sequence condition, that both of the strings above would pass as true.

You could remove all non-letter chars with .replace(/[^A-Za-z]+/g, '') and then run the regex:
var strs = ["aaaaa", "aaa1aa"];
var val_rx = /[a-zA-Z]{5,}/;
for (var s of strs) {
console.log( val_rx.test(s.replace(/[^A-Za-z]+/g, '')) );
}
Else, you may also use a one step solution like
var strs = ["aaaaa", "aaa1aa"];
var val_rx = /(?:[^a-zA-Z]*[a-zA-Z]){5,}/;
for (var s of strs) {
console.log( s, "=>", val_rx.test(s) );
}
See this second regex demo online. (?:[^a-zA-Z]*[a-zA-Z]){5,} matches 5 or more consecutive occurrences of 0 or more non-letter chars ([^a-zA-Z]*) followed with a letter char.

Allow non-letter characters between the letters:
(?:[A-Za-z][^A-Za-z]*){5,}

If you have to use a regular expression only, here's one somewhat ugly option:
const check = str => /^(.*[A-Za-z].*){5}/.test(str);
console.log(check("aaaaa"));
console.log(check("aa1aaa"));
console.log(check("aa1aa"));

w means alphanumeric in regex,
it will be ok : \w{5,}

[a-zA-Z0-9]{5,}
Just like this? Or do you mean it needs to be a regex that ignores digits? Because the above would match aaaa1 as well.

Replace after char '-' or '/' match

I'm trying to execute regex replace after match char, example 3674802/3 or 637884-ORG
The id can become one of them, in that case, how can I use regex replace to match to remove after the match?
Input var id = 3674802/3 or 637884-ORG;
Expected Output 3674802 or 637884

You could use sbustring method to take part of string only till '/' OR '-':
var input = "3674802/3";
var output = input.substr(0, input.indexOf('/'));
var input = "637884-ORG";
var output = input.substr(0, input.indexOf('-'));
var input = "3674802/3";
if (input.indexOf('/') > -1)
{
input = input.substr(0, input.indexOf('/'));
}
console.log(input);
var input = "637884-ORG";
if (input.indexOf('-') > -1)
{
input = input.substr(0, input.indexOf('-'));
}
console.log(input);

You can use a regex with a lookahead assertion
/(\d+)(?=[/-])/g
var id = "3674802/3"
console.log((id.match(/(\d+)(?=[/-])/g) || []).pop())
id = "637884-ORG"
console.log((id.match(/(\d+)(?=[/-])/g) || []).pop())

You don't need Regex for this. Regex is far more powerful than what you need.
You get away with the String's substring and indexOf methods.
indexOf takes in a character/substring and returns an integer. The integer represents what character position the character/substring starts at.
substring takes in a starting position and ending position, and returns the new string from the start to the end.
If are having trouble getting these to work; then, feel free to ask for more clarification.

You can use the following script:
var str = '3674802/3 or 637884-ORG';
var id = str.replace(/(\d+)[-\/](?:\d+|[A-Z]+)/g, '$1');
Details concerning the regex:
(\d+) - A seuence of digits, the 1st capturing group.
[-\/] - Either a minus or a slash. Because / are regex delimiters,
it must be escaped with a backslash.
(?: - Start of a non-capturing group, a "container" for alternatives.
\d+ - First alternative - a sequence of digits.
| - Alternative separator.
[A-Z]+ - Second alternative - a sequence of letters.
) - End of the non-capturing group.
g - global option.
The expression to replace with: $1 - replace the whole finding with
the first capturing group.

Thanks To everyone who responded to my question, was really helpful to resolve my issue.
Here is My answer that I built:
var str = ['8484683*ORG','7488575/2','647658-ORG'];
for(i=0;i<str.length;i++){
var regRep = /((\/\/[^\/]+)?\/.*)|(\-.*)|(\*.*)/;
var txt = str[i].replace(regRep,"");
console.log(txt);
}

What's the JS RegExp for this specific string?

I have a rather isolated situation in an inventory management program where our shelf locations have a specific format, which is always Letter: Number-Letter-Number, such as Y: 1-E-4. Most of us coworkers just type in "y1e4" and are done with it, but that obviously creates issues with inconsistent formats in a database. Are JS RegExp's the ideal way to automatically detect and format these alphanumeric strings? I'm slowly wrapping my head around JavaScript's Perl syntax, but what's a simple example of formatting one of these strings?

spec: detect string format of either "W: D-W-D" or "WDWD" and return "W: D-W-D"
This function will accept any format and return undefined if it doesnt match, returns the formatted string if a match does occur.
function validateInventoryCode(input) {
var regexp = /^([a-zA-Z]+)(?:\:\s*)?(\d+)-?(\w+)-?(\d+)$/
var r = regexp.exec(input);
if(r != null) {
return `${r[1]}: ${r[2]}-${r[3]}-${r[4]}`;
}
}
var possibles = ["y1e1", "y:1e1", "Y: 1r3", "y: 32e4", "1:e3e"];
possibles.forEach(function(posssiblity) {
console.log(`input(${posssiblity}), result(${validateInventoryCode(posssiblity)})`);
})
function validateInventoryCode(input) {
var regexp = /^([a-zA-Z]+)(?:\:\s*)?(\d+)-?(\w+)-?(\d+)$/
var r = regexp.exec(input);
if (r != null) {
return `${r[1]}: ${r[2]}-${r[3]}-${r[4]}`;
}
}

I understand the question as "convert LetterNumberLetterNumber to Letter: Number-Letter-Number.
You may use
/^([a-z])(\d+)([a-z])(\d+)$/i
and replace with $1: $2-$3-$4
Details:
^ - start of string
([a-z]) - Group 1 (referenced with $1 from the replacement pattern) capturing any ASCII letter (as /i makes the pattern case-insensitive)
(\d+) - Group 2 capturing 1 or more digits
([a-z]) - Group 3, a letter
(\d+) - Group 4, a number (1 or more digits)
$ - end of string.
See the regex demo.
var re = /^([a-z])(\d+)([a-z])(\d+)$/i;
var s = 'y1e2';
var result = s.replace(re, '$1: $2-$3-$4');
console.log(result);
OR - if the letters must be turned to upper case:
var re = /^([a-z])(\d+)([a-z])(\d+)$/i;
var s = 'y1e2';
var result = s.replace(re,
(m,g1,g2,g3,g4)=>`${g1.toUpperCase()}: ${g2}-${g3.toUpperCase()}-${g4}`
);
console.log(result);

this is the function to match and replace the pattern: DEMO
function findAndFormat(text){
var splittedText=text.split(' ');
for(var i=0, textLength=splittedText.length; i<textLength; i++){
var analyzed=splittedText[i].match(/[A-z]{1}\d{1}[A-z]{1}\d{1}$/);
if(analyzed){
var formattedString=analyzed[0][0].toUpperCase()+': '+analyzed[0][1]+'-'+analyzed[0][2].toUpperCase()+'-'+analyzed[0][3];
text=text.replace(splittedText[i],formattedString);
}
}
return text;
}

i think it's just as it reads:
y1e4
Letter, number, letter, number:
/([A-z][0-9][A-z][0-9])/g
And yes, it's ok to use regex in this case, like form validations and stuff like that. it's just there are some cases on which abusing of regular expressions gives you a bad performance (into intensive data processing and the like)
Example
"HelloY1E4world".replace(/([A-z][0-9][A-z][0-9])/g, ' ');
should return: "Hello world"
regxr.com always comes in handy

RegEx needed to split javascript string on "|" but not "\|"

We would like to split a string on instances of the pipe character |, but not if that character is preceded by an escape character, e.g. \|.
ex we would like to see the following string split into the following components
1|2|3\|4|5
1
2
3\|4
5
I'm expecting to be able to use the following javascript function, split, which takes a regular expression. What regex would I pass to split? We are cross platform and would like to support current and previous versions (1 version back) of IE, FF, and Chrome if possible.

Instead of a split, do a global match (the same way a lexical analyzer would):
match anything other than \\ or |
or match any escaped char
Something like this:
var str = "1|2|3\\|4|5";
var matches = str.match(/([^\\|]|\\.)+/g);
A quick explanation: ([^\\|]|\\.) matches either any character except '\' and '|' (pattern: [^\\|]) or (pattern: |) it matches any escaped character (pattern: \\.). The + after it tells it to match the previous once or more: the pattern ([^\\|]|\\.) will therefor be matches once or more. The g at the end of the regex literal tells the JavaScript regex engine to match the pattern globally instead of matching it just once.

What you're looking for is a "negative look-behind matching regular expression".
This isn't pretty, but it should split the list for you:
var output = input.replace(/(\\)?|/g, function($0,$1){ return $1?$1:$0+'\n';});
This will take your input string and replace all of the '|' characters NOT immediately preceded by a '\' character and replace them with '\n' characters.

A regex solution was posted as I was looking into this. So I just went ahead and wrote one without it. I did some simple benchmarks and it is -slightly- faster (I expected it to be slower...).
Without using Regex, if I understood what you desire, this should do the job:
function doSplit(input) {
var output = [];
var currPos = 0,
prevPos = -1;
while ((currPos = input.indexOf('|', currPos + 1)) != -1) {
if (input[currPos-1] == "\\") continue;
var recollect = input.substr(prevPos + 1, currPos - prevPos - 1);
prevPos = currPos;
output.push(recollect);
}
var recollect = input.substr(prevPos + 1);
output.push(recollect);
return output;
}
doSplit('1|2|3\\|4|5'); //returns [ '1', '2', '3\\|4', '5' ]

Regular expression to parse jQuery-selector-like string

text = '#container a.filter(.top).filter(.bottom).filter(.middle)';
regex = /(.*?)\.filter\((.*?)\)/;
matches = text.match(regex);
log(matches);
// matches[1] is '#container a'
//matchss[2] is '.top'
I expect to capture
matches[1] is '#container a'
matches[2] is '.top'
matches[3] is '.bottom'
matches[4] is '.middle'
One solution would be to split the string into #container a and rest. Then take rest and execute recursive exec to get item inside ().
Update: I am posting a solution that does work. However I am looking for a better solution. Don't really like the idea of splitting the string and then processing
Here is a solution that works.
matches = [];
var text = '#container a.filter(.top).filter(.bottom).filter(.middle)';
var regex = /(.*?)\.filter\((.*?)\)/;
var match = regex.exec(text);
firstPart = text.substring(match.index,match[1].length);
rest = text.substring(matchLength, text.length);
matches.push(firstPart);
regex = /\.filter\((.*?)\)/g;
while ((match = regex.exec(rest)) != null) {
matches.push(match[1]);
}
log(matches);
Looking for a better solution.

This will match the single example you posted:
<html>
<body>
<script type="text/javascript">
text = '#container a.filter(.top).filter(.bottom).filter(.middle)';
matches = text.match(/^[^.]*|\.[^.)]*(?=\))/g);
document.write(matches);
</script>
</body>
</html>
which produces:
#container a,.top,.bottom,.middle
EDIT
Here's a short explanation:
^ # match the beginning of the input
[^.]* # match any character other than '.' and repeat it zero or more times
#
| # OR
#
\. # match the character '.'
[^.)]* # match any character other than '.' and ')' and repeat it zero or more times
(?= # start positive look ahead
\) # match the character ')'
) # end positive look ahead
EDIT part II
The regex looks for two types of character sequences:
one ore more characters starting from the start of the string up to the first ., the regex: ^[^.]*
or it matches a character sequence starting with a . followed by zero or more characters other than . and ), \.[^.)]*, but must have a ) ahead of it: (?=\)). This last requirement causes .filter not to match.

You have to iterate, I think.
var head, filters = [];
text.replace(/^([^.]*)(\..*)$/, function(_, h, rem) {
head = h;
rem.replace(/\.filter\(([^)]*)\)/g, function(_, f) {
filters.push(f);
});
});
console.log("head: " + head + " filters: " + filters);
The ability to use functions as the second argument to String.replace is one of my favorite things about Javascript :-)

You need to do several matches repeatedly, starting where the last match ends (see while example at https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Core_JavaScript_1.5_Reference/Global_Objects/RegExp/exec):
If your regular expression uses the "g" flag, you can use the exec method multiple times to find successive matches in the same string. When you do so, the search starts at the substring of str specified by the regular expression's lastIndex property. For example, assume you have this script:
var myRe = /ab*/g;
var str = "abbcdefabh";
var myArray;
while ((myArray = myRe.exec(str)) != null)
{
var msg = "Found " + myArray[0] + ". ";
msg += "Next match starts at " + myRe.lastIndex;
print(msg);
}
This script displays the following text:
Found abb. Next match starts at 3
Found ab. Next match starts at 9
However, this case would be better solved using a custom-built parser. Regular expressions are not an effective solution to this problem, if you ask me.

var text = '#container a.filter(.top).filter(.bottom).filter(.middle)';
var result = text.split('.filter');
console.log(result[0]);
console.log(result[1]);
console.log(result[2]);
console.log(result[3]);

text.split() with regex does the trick.
var text = '#container a.filter(.top).filter(.bottom).filter(.middle)';
var parts = text.split(/(\.[^.()]+)/);
var matches = [parts[0]];
for (var i = 3; i < parts.length; i += 4) {
matches.push(parts[i]);
}
console.log(matches);