Develop Reference

Regex expression to match certain url behavior in my website

I have the following url
https://myurl/blogs/<blog-category>/<blog-article>
I've trying to create a regEx so i can thrigger a script only when i'm in an article.
i tried this among other tests but it didn't work and i'm not really the best guy building RegExs.
window.location.pathname.match(/\/blogs\/^[a-zA-Z0-9_.-]*$\/^[a-zA-Z0-9_.-]*$/
So in my understanding the first part of this regEx (\/blogs\/) is trying just to match a fixed string.
Then next parts just tries to match any kind of numeric,character and _.- combination (which is basically the potential strings that i can have there)
However this is not working at all.
My piece of script is looking like this
if(window.location.pathname.match(/\/blogs\/^[a-zA-Z0-9_.-]*$\/^[a-zA-Z0-9_.-]*$/){
// A code implementation here
}
Note: One thing that i noticed when writing this is that if i remove everything and just try
window.location.pathname.match(/\/blogs\/)
It doesn't work either.
Can someone help me solve this? I will also appreciate any guide that can help me improve my RegEx skills.
Thanks!
Update: to have this working i had to separate my condition into two things to get it to work properly.
It ended up looking like this:
var path = window.location.pathname;
const regEx = /\/blogs\/[a-zA-Z0-9_.-]*\/[a-zA-Z0-9_.-]*/i;
if(path.match(regEx)){
// My code here
}

This should work:
\/blogs\/[a-zA-Z0-9_.-]*\/[a-zA-Z0-9_.-]*
the "^" symbol checks that it is the start of a string which is not the case for the url in question
I would suggest using https://regexr.com/ for testing your regex to remove any other possible issues from other code

var patt = /\/blogs\/[a-zA-Z0-9_.-]*\/[a-zA-Z0-9_.-]*/i window.location.pathname.match(patt)
You can try using this

JavaScript RegEx match unless wrapped with [nocode][/nocode] tags

My current code is:
var user_pattern = this.settings.tag;
user_pattern = user_pattern.replace(/[\-\[\]\/\{\}\(\)\*\+\?\.\\\^\$\|]/g, "\\$&"); // escape regex
var pattern = new RegExp(user_pattern.replace(/%USERNAME%/i, "(\\S+)"), "ig");
Where this.settings.tag is a string such as "[user=%USERNAME%]" or "#%USERNAME%". The code uses pattern.exec(str) to find any username in the corresponding tag and works perfectly fine. For example, if str = "Hello, [user=test]" then pattern.exec(str) will find test.
This works fine, but I want to be able to stop it from matching if the string is wrapped in [nocode][/nocode] tags. For example, if str = "[nocode]Hello, [user=test], how are you?[/nocode]" thenpattern.exec(str)` should not match anything.
I'm not quite sure where to start. I tried using a (?![nocode]) before and after the pattern, but to no avail. Any help would be great.

I would just test if the string starts with [nocode] first:
/^\[nocode\]/.test('[nocode]');
Then simply do not process it.

Maybe filter out [nocode] before trying to find the username(s)?
pattern.exec(str.replace(/\[nocode\](.*)\[\/nocode\]/g,''));
I know this isn't exactly what you asked for because now you have to use two separate regular expressions, however code readability is important too and doing it this way is definitely better in that aspect. Hope this helps 😉
JSFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/1f485Lda/1/
It's based on this: Regular Expression to get a string between two strings in Javascript

Only match regex if it doesnt start with a pattern in javascript

I have a bit of a strange one here, I basically have a large chunk of text which may or may not contain links to images.
So lets say it does I have a pattern which will extract the image url fine, however once a match is found it is replaced with a element with the link as the src. Now the problem is there may be multiple matches within the text and this is where it gets tricky. As the url pattern will now match the src tags url, which will basically just enter an infinite loop.
So is there a way to ONLY match in regex if it doesnt start with a pattern like ="|=' ? as then it would match the url in something like:
some image http://cdn.sstatic.net/stackoverflow/img/sprites.png?v=6
but not
some image <img src="http://cdn.sstatic.net/stackoverflow/img/sprites.png?v=6">
I am not sure if it is possible, but if it is could someone point me in the right direction? A replace by itself will not suffice in this scenario as the url matched needs to be used elsewhere too so it needs to be used like a capture.
The main scenarios I need to account for are:
Many links in one block of varied text
A single link without any other text
A single link with other varied text
== edit ==
Here is the current regex I am using to match urls:
(\b(https?|ftp|file):\/\/[-A-Z0-9+&##\/%?=~_|!:,.;]*(?:png|jpeg|jpg|gif|bmp))
== edit 2 ==
Just so everyone understands why I cannot use the /g command here is an answer which explains the issue, if I could use this /g like I originally tried then it would make things a lot simpler.
Javascript regex multiple captures again

What you are looking for is a negative look behind, but Javascript doesn't support any kind of look behinds, so you will either have to use a callback function to check what was matched and make sure it is not preceded by a ' or ", or you can use the following regex:
(?:^|[^"'])(\b(https?|ftp|file):\/\/[-a-zA-Z0-9+&##\/%?=~_|!:,.;]*(?:png|jpeg|jpg|gif|bmp))
which has a single problem, that is in the case of a successful match it will catch one more character, the one right before the (\b(https?|ftp|file) pattern in the input, but I think you can deal with this easily.
Regex101 Demo

Using the /ig command at the end should work... the g is for global replace and the i is for case-insensitivity, which is necessary as you've only got A-Z instead of a-zA-Z.
Using the following vanilla JS appears to work for me (see jsfiddle)...
var test="some image http://cdn.sstatic.net/stackoverflow/img/sprites.png?v=6 some image http://cdn.sstatic.net/stackoverflow/img/sprites.png?v=6 some image http://cdn.sstatic.net/stackoverflow/img/sprites.png?v=6";
var re = new RegExp(/(\b(https?|ftp|file):\/\/[-A-Z0-9+&##\/%?=~_|!:,.;]*(?:png|jpeg|jpg|gif|bmp))/ig);
document.getElementById("output").innerHTML = test.replace(re,"<img src=\"$1\"/>");
Although, what it does highlight is that the query string part of the URL (the ?v=6 is not being picked up with your RegEx).
For jQuery, it would be (see jsfiddle)...
$(document).ready(function(){
var test="some image http://cdn.sstatic.net/stackoverflow/img/sprites.png?v=6 some image http://cdn.sstatic.net/stackoverflow/img/sprites.png?v=6 some image http://cdn.sstatic.net/stackoverflow/img/sprites.png?v=6";
var re = new RegExp(/(\b(https?|ftp|file):\/\/[-A-Z0-9+&##\/%?=~_|!:,.;]*(?:png|jpeg|jpg|gif|bmp))/ig);
$("#output").html(test.replace(re,"<img src=\"$1\"/>"));
});
Update
Just in case my example of using the same image URL in the example doesn't convince you - it also works with different URLs... see this jsfiddle update
var test="http://cdn.sstatic.net/stackoverflow/img/sprites.png?v=6 http://cdn.sstatic.net/serverfault/img/sprites.png?v=7";
var re = new RegExp(/(\b(https?|ftp|file):\/\/[-A-Z0-9+&##\/%?=~_|!:,.;]*(?:png|jpeg|jpg|gif|bmp))/ig);
document.getElementById("output").innerHTML = test.replace(re,"<img src=\"$1\"/>");

Couldn't you just see if there is a whitespace in front of the url, instead of that word-boundary? seems to work, although you will have to remove the matched whitespace later.
(\s(https?|ftp|file):\/\/[-A-Z0-9+&##\/%?=~_|!:,.;]*(?:png|jpeg|jpg|gif|bmp))
http://rubular.com/r/9wSc0HNWas
Edit: Damn, too slow :) I'll still leave this here as my regex is shorter ;)

as was said by freefaller, you might use /g flag to just find all matches in one go, if exec is not a must.
otherwise: you can add (="|=')? to the beginning of your regex, and check if $1 is undefined. if it is undefined, then it was not started with a ="|=' pattern

Grabbing the third fragment between square brackets

Still completely stuck with regex's and square brackets. Hopefully someone can help me out.
Say I have a string like this:
room_request[1][1][2011-08-21]
How would I grab the third fragment out of it?
I tried the following, but I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing so it's fairly hard to figure out where I'm going wrong.
.match(/\[(.*?)\]/);
But this returns the [1] fragment. (The first one, I guess).
So then, I asked here on SO and people told me to add a global flag:
.match(/\[(.*?)\]/g)[2];
In other cases that I've used this regex, this worked fine. However, in this case, I want the stuff INSIDE the square brackets. It returns:
[2011-08-21]
But I really want 2011-08-21.
How can I do this? Thanks a lot.
If anyone could recommend any decent resources about regular expressions, that'd be great aswell. I'm starting to understand the very basics but most of this stuff is far too confusing atm. Thanks.

Two possible methods. To grab the third bracketed expression:
.match(/\[.*?\]\[.*?\]\[(.*?)\]/);
Or, if you know that the expression you want is always at the end of the string:
.match(/\[(.*?)\]$/);

var str = "room_request[1][1][2011-08-21]"
var val = str.match(/\[[^\]]*\]\[[^\]]*\]\[([^\]]*)\]/);
alert(val[1]);

This is a little less messy I think:
var r = "room_request[1][1][2011-08-21]";
var match = r.match(/(?:\[([^\]]+)\]){3}/);
console.log(match[1]);
Basically, it picks out the third match of the square brackets containing something. You get the match result back with two matches - the whole [1][1][2011-08-21] (for whatever reason) and the matched date: 2011-08-21
My regex is a little rusty, but this certainly works.

please extract a bit of info from this string (without regex so that i can understand it)

On my web app, I take a look at the current URL, and if the current URL is a form like this:
http://www.domain.com:11000/invite/abcde16989/root/index.html
-> All I need is to extract the ID which consists of 5 letters and 5 numbers (abcde16989) in another variable for further use.
So I need this:
var current_url = "the whole path, not just the hostname";
if (current_url has ID)
var ID = abcde16989;

You could always use split using / as the delimiter if the ID is always going to be in the same position, eg
var parts = current_url.split('/');
var id = parts[4];
Though your requirement of matching "5 letters and 5 numbers" really does suit a regex match.
var id = current_url.match(/[a-zA-Z]{5}[0-9]{5}/); // returns null if not found

I'm assuming you don't need the full URL, but just the pathname to get your ID. Use the following:
var current_url = window.location.pathname; //gets the pathname
var split_url = current_url.split('/'); //splits the path at each /
current_id = split_url[2]; //1st item in array is "invite", 2nd is your id, 3rd would be "root"
alert(current_id);

Firstly, this doesn't need JQuery; this is simple Javascript. I'll amend your tags after I've replied to reflect this.
A regex would actually be quite an easy way to achieve this, and I don't think a simple one like this would be as difficult to understand as you think.
So I'll answer with the regex option anyway and then move on to other options:
var url = "http://www.domain.com:11000/invite/abcde16989/root/index.html";
//first method:
var id = url.match('^http://www.domain.com:11000/invite/(.+)/root/index.html$')[1];/index.html$/)[1];
//second method: (if you don't know exact format of the rest of the URL but you do know the format of the ID string)
var id = url.match('/([a-z]{5}[0-9]{5})/')[1];
The first method will get the string in the position you specified within the URL. It won't check the formatting; it just looks at the rest of the URL and grabs the bit of it you're asking for. This should be really easy to understand: It's basically just your URL, but with (.+) where your ID goes.
The second method looks specifically for a string in the format you asked for -- ie five letters and then five numbers. This is admittedly a bit harder to read, but should be fairly self explanatory if you look at it given those criteria.
In both cases, the regex itself will return an array of results, with array element zero being the whole string (ie in the first case, including the rest of the URL). This is where the (brackets) come in (ie the bit where we said (.+)). This tells the match function to put the contents of the brackets into another array element so we can use it. In both cases, this means that we can read the ID in array element [1].
Okay, so how about the non-regex options:
In fact, it's going to be quite hard to do it in a simple way without regex in Javascript, since even the simple string splitting function uses a regex match to do the split (granted it would be a very simple one, it is still a regex). A couple of other people have already given you answers using this, but it is still a regex, so technically they've also not answered your question accurately.
I'm going to guess that actually one of these answers will be good enough for you (either mine or more likely one of the answers using split()), despite there still being a regex element. However if you really don't want anything to do with regex, you're going to have to start doing some slightly more complex string manipulation, probably using substring() (though there are other ways to do it).
Something along the lines of this:
var prefixstring="http://www.domain.com:11000/invite/";
var prefixlen=prefixstring.length;
var idlen=10;
var id = url.substring(prefixlen,idlen+prefixlen);
This gets the length of the portion of the URL in front of the ID, and then uses substring() to snip out the required bit. But I'm sure you'll agree that the regex options are simpler? ;-)
Hope that helps. (and I hope it helps you feel less afraid of regex!)