Develop Reference

How to slice optional arguments in RegEx?

Actually i have the following RegExp expression:
/^(?:(?:\,([A-Za-z]{5}))?)+$/g
So the accepted input should be something like ,IGORA but even ,IGORA,GIANC,LOLLI is valid and i would be able to slice the string to 3 group in this case, in other the group number should be equals to the user input that pass the RegExp test.
i was trying to do something like this in JavaScript but it return only the last value
var str = ',GIANC,IGORA';
var arr = str.match(/^(?:(?:\,([A-Za-z]{5}))?)+$/).slice(1);
alert(arr);
So the output is 'IGORA' while i would it to be 'GIANC' 'IGORA'
Here is another example
/^([A-Z]{5})(?:(?:\,([A-Za-z]{2}))?)+$/g
test of regexp may have at least 5 chart string but it also can have other 5 chart string separated with a comma so from input
IGORA,CIAOA,POPOP
I would have an array of ["IGORA","CIAOA","POPOP"]

You can capture the words in a capturing surrounded by an optional preceding comma or an optional trailing comma.
You can test the regex here: ,?([A-Za-z]+),?
const pattern = /,?([A-Za-z]+),?/gm;
const str = `,IGORA,GIANC,LOLLI`;
let matches = [];
let match;
// Iterate until no match found
while ((m = pattern.exec(str))) {
// The first captured group is the match
matches.push(m[1]);
}
console.log(matches);

There are other ways to do this, but I found that one of the simple ways is by using the replace method, as it can replace all instances that match that regex.
For example:
var regex = /^(?:(?:\,([A-Za-z]{5}))?)+$/g;
var str = ',GIANC,IGORA';
var arr = [];
str.replace(regex, function(match) {
arr[arr.length] = match;
return match;
});
console.log(arr);
Also, in my code snippet you can see that there is an extra coma in each string, you can solve that by changing line 5 to arr[arr.length] = match.replace(/^,/, '').

Is this what you're looking for?
Explanation:
\b word boundary (starting or ending a word)
\w a word ([A-z])
{5} 5 characters of previous
So it matches all 5-character words but not NANANANA
var str = 'IGORA,CIAOA,POPOP,NANANANA';
var arr = str.match(/\b\w{5}\b/g);
console.log(arr); //['IGORA', 'CIAOA', 'POPOP']
If you only wish to select words separated by commas and nothing else, you can test for them like so:
(?<=,\s*|^) preceded by , with any number of trailing space, OR is the first word in list.
(?=,\s*|$) followed by , and any number of trailing spaces OR is last word in list.
In the following code, POPOP and MOMMA are rejected because they are not separated by a comma, and NANANANA fails because it is not 5 character.
var str = 'IGORA, CIAOA, POPOP MOMMA, NANANANA, MEOWI';
var arr = str.match(/(?<=,\s*|^)\b\w{5}\b(?=,\s*|$)/g);
console.log(arr); //['IGORA', 'CIAOA', 'MEOWI']
If you can't have any trailing spaces after the comma, just leave out the \s* from both (?<=,\s*|^) and (?=,\s*|$).

Regex extracting multiple matches for string [duplicate]

I'm trying to obtain all possible matches from a string using regex with javascript. It appears that my method of doing this is not matching parts of the string that have already been matched.
Variables:
var string = 'A1B1Y:A1B2Y:A1B3Y:A1B4Z:A1B5Y:A1B6Y:A1B7Y:A1B8Z:A1B9Y:A1B10Y:A1B11Y';
var reg = /A[0-9]+B[0-9]+Y:A[0-9]+B[0-9]+Y/g;
Code:
var match = string.match(reg);
All matched results I get:
A1B1Y:A1B2Y
A1B5Y:A1B6Y
A1B9Y:A1B10Y
Matched results I want:
A1B1Y:A1B2Y
A1B2Y:A1B3Y
A1B5Y:A1B6Y
A1B6Y:A1B7Y
A1B9Y:A1B10Y
A1B10Y:A1B11Y
In my head, I want A1B1Y:A1B2Y to be a match along with A1B2Y:A1B3Y, even though A1B2Y in the string will need to be part of two matches.

Without modifying your regex, you can set it to start matching at the beginning of the second half of the match after each match using .exec and manipulating the regex object's lastIndex property.
var string = 'A1B1Y:A1B2Y:A1B3Y:A1B4Z:A1B5Y:A1B6Y:A1B7Y:A1B8Z:A1B9Y:A1B10Y:A1B11Y';
var reg = /A[0-9]+B[0-9]+Y:A[0-9]+B[0-9]+Y/g;
var matches = [], found;
while (found = reg.exec(string)) {
matches.push(found[0]);
reg.lastIndex -= found[0].split(':')[1].length;
}
console.log(matches);
//["A1B1Y:A1B2Y", "A1B2Y:A1B3Y", "A1B5Y:A1B6Y", "A1B6Y:A1B7Y", "A1B9Y:A1B10Y", "A1B10Y:A1B11Y"]
Demo
As per Bergi's comment, you can also get the index of the last match and increment it by 1 so it instead of starting to match from the second half of the match onwards, it will start attempting to match from the second character of each match onwards:
reg.lastIndex = found.index+1;
Demo
The final outcome is the same. Though, Bergi's update has a little less code and performs slightly faster. =]

You cannot get the direct result from match, but it is possible to produce the result via RegExp.exec and with some modification to the regex:
var regex = /A[0-9]+B[0-9]+Y(?=(:A[0-9]+B[0-9]+Y))/g;
var input = 'A1B1Y:A1B2Y:A1B3Y:A1B4Z:A1B5Y:A1B6Y:A1B7Y:A1B8Z:A1B9Y:A1B10Y:A1B11Y'
var arr;
var results = [];
while ((arr = regex.exec(input)) !== null) {
results.push(arr[0] + arr[1]);
}
I used zero-width positive look-ahead (?=pattern) in order not to consume the text, so that the overlapping portion can be rematched.
Actually, it is possible to abuse replace method to do achieve the same result:
var input = 'A1B1Y:A1B2Y:A1B3Y:A1B4Z:A1B5Y:A1B6Y:A1B7Y:A1B8Z:A1B9Y:A1B10Y:A1B11Y'
var results = [];
input.replace(/A[0-9]+B[0-9]+Y(?=(:A[0-9]+B[0-9]+Y))/g, function ($0, $1) {
results.push($0 + $1);
return '';
});
However, since it is replace, it does extra useless replacement work.

Unfortunately, it's not quite as simple as a single string.match.
The reason is that you want overlapping matches, which the /g flag doesn't give you.
You could use lookahead:
var re = /A\d+B\d+Y(?=:A\d+B\d+Y)/g;
But now you get:
string.match(re); // ["A1B1Y", "A1B2Y", "A1B5Y", "A1B6Y", "A1B9Y", "A1B10Y"]
The reason is that lookahead is zero-width, meaning that it just says whether the pattern comes after what you're trying to match or not; it doesn't include it in the match.
You could use exec to try and grab what you want. If a regex has the /g flag, you can run exec repeatedly to get all the matches:
// using re from above to get the overlapping matches
var m;
var matches = [];
var re2 = /A\d+B\d+Y:A\d+B\d+Y/g; // make another regex to get what we need
while ((m = re.exec(string)) !== null) {
// m is a match object, which has the index of the current match
matches.push(string.substring(m.index).match(re2)[0]);
}
matches == [
"A1B1Y:A1B2Y",
"A1B2Y:A1B3Y",
"A1B5Y:A1B6Y",
"A1B6Y:A1B7Y",
"A1B9Y:A1B10Y",
"A1B10Y:A1B11Y"
];
Here's a fiddle of this in action. Open up the console to see the results
Alternatively, you could split the original string on :, then loop through the resulting array, pulling out the the ones that match when array[i] and array[i+1] both match like you want.

Why is this regex matching also words within a non-capturing group?

I have this string (notice the multi-line syntax):
var str = ` Number One: Get this
Number Two: And this`;
And I want a regex that returns (with match):
[str, 'Get this', 'And this']
So I tried str.match(/Number (?:One|Two): (.*)/g);, but that's returning:
["Number One: Get this", "Number Two: And this"]
There can be any whitespace/line-breaks before any "Number" word.
Why doesn't it return only what is inside of the capturing group? Am I misundersating something? And how can I achieve the desired result?

Per the MDN documentation for String.match:
If the regular expression includes the g flag, the method returns an Array containing all matched substrings rather than match objects. Captured groups are not returned. If there were no matches, the method returns null.
(emphasis mine).
So, what you want is not possible.
The same page adds:
if you want to obtain capture groups and the global flag is set, you need to use RegExp.exec() instead.
so if you're willing to give on using match, you can write your own function that repeatedly applies the regex, gets the captured substrings, and builds an array.
Or, for your specific case, you could write something like this:
var these = str.split(/(?:^|\n)\s*Number (?:One|Two): /);
these[0] = str;

Replace and store the result in a new string, like this:
var str = ` Number One: Get this
Number Two: And this`;
var output = str.replace(/Number (?:One|Two): (.*)/g, "$1");
console.log(output);
which outputs:
Get this
And this
If you want the match array like you requested, you can try this:
var getMatch = function(string, split, regex) {
var match = string.replace(regex, "$1" + split);
match = match.split(split);
match = match.reverse();
match.push(string);
match = match.reverse();
match.pop();
return match;
}
var str = ` Number One: Get this
Number Two: And this`;
var regex = /Number (?:One|Two): (.*)/g;
var match = getMatch(str, "#!SPLIT!#", regex);
console.log(match);
which displays the array as desired:
[ ' Number One: Get this\n Number Two: And this',
' Get this',
'\n And this' ]
Where split (here #!SPLIT!#) should be a unique string to split the matches. Note that this only works for single groups. For multi groups add a variable indicating the number of groups and add a for loop constructing "$1 $2 $3 $4 ..." + split.

Try
var str = " Number One: Get this\
Number Two: And this";
// `/\w+\s+\w+(?=\s|$)/g` match one or more alphanumeric characters ,
// followed by one or more space characters ,
// followed by one or more alphanumeric characters ,
// if following space or end of input , set `g` flag
// return `res` array `["Get this", "And this"]`
var res = str.match(/\w+\s+\w+(?=\s|$)/g);
document.write(JSON.stringify(res));

Match repeating pattern using single group in regex

Using the JS regex object, is it possible to match a repeating pattern using a single, or few groups?
For instance, taking the following as input:
#222<abc#321cba#123>#111
Would it be possible to match both "#321" and "#123" (but not #222 or #111, as they're outside the /<.*?>/ group) using a regex similar to:
/<.*?(?:(#[0-9]+).*?)>/
(which currently only matches the first instance), when the number of matches in the input is unknown?

You'd have to loop over the inner pattern.
First use /<(.*?)>/ to extract it:
var outerRegex = /<(.*?)>/;
var match = outerRegex.exec(input);
var innerPattern = match[1];
Next, iterate over the result:
var innerRegex = /#\d+/g;
while (match = innerRegex.exec(innerPattern))
{
var result = match[0];
...
}

How can I remove all characters up to and including the 3rd slash in a string?

I'm having trouble with removing all characters up to and including the 3 third slash in JavaScript. This is my string:
http://blablab/test
The result should be:
test
Does anybody know the correct solution?

To get the last item in a path, you can split the string on / and then pop():
var url = "http://blablab/test";
alert(url.split("/").pop());
//-> "test"
To specify an individual part of a path, split on / and use bracket notation to access the item:
var url = "http://blablab/test/page.php";
alert(url.split("/")[3]);
//-> "test"
Or, if you want everything after the third slash, split(), slice() and join():
var url = "http://blablab/test/page.php";
alert(url.split("/").slice(3).join("/"));
//-> "test/page.php"

var string = 'http://blablab/test'
string = string.replace(/[\s\S]*\//,'').replace(/[\s\S]*\//,'').replace(/[\s\S]*\//,'')
alert(string)
This is a regular expression. I will explain below
The regex is /[\s\S]*\//
/ is the start of the regex
Where [\s\S] means whitespace or non whitespace (anything), not to be confused with . which does not match line breaks (. is the same as [^\r\n]).
* means that we match anywhere from zero to unlimited number of [\s\S]
\/ Means match a slash character
The last / is the end of the regex

var str = "http://blablab/test";
var index = 0;
for(var i = 0; i < 3; i++){
index = str.indexOf("/",index)+1;
}
str = str.substr(index);
To make it a one liner you could make the following:
str = str.substr(str.indexOf("/",str.indexOf("/",str.indexOf("/")+1)+1)+1);

You can use split to split the string in parts and use slice to return all parts after the third slice.
var str = "http://blablab/test",
arr = str.split("/");
arr = arr.slice(3);
console.log(arr.join("/")); // "test"
// A longer string:
var str = "http://blablab/test/test"; // "test/test";

You could use a regular expression like this one:
'http://blablab/test'.match(/^(?:[^/]*\/){3}(.*)$/);
// -> ['http://blablab/test', 'test]
A string’s match method gives you either an array (of the whole match, in this case the whole input, and of any capture groups (and we want the first capture group)), or null. So, for general use you need to pull out the 1th element of the array, or null if a match wasn’t found:
var input = 'http://blablab/test',
re = /^(?:[^/]*\/){3}(.*)$/,
match = input.match(re),
result = match && match[1]; // With this input, result contains "test"

let str = "http://blablab/test";
let data = new URL(str).pathname.split("/").pop();
console.log(data);