Develop Reference

Check for Palindromes on freecode camp (don't want solution)

I want to be clear I'm not looking for solutions. I'm really trying to understand what is being done. With that said all pointers and recommendations are welcomed. I am woking through freecodecamp.com task of Check for Palindromes. Below is the description.
Return true if the given string is a palindrome. Otherwise, return
false.
A palindrome is a word or sentence that's spelled the same way both
forward and backward, ignoring punctuation, case, and spacing.
Note You'll need to remove all non-alphanumeric characters
(punctuation, spaces and symbols) and turn everything lower case in
order to check for palindromes.
We'll pass strings with varying formats, such as "racecar", "RaceCar",
and "race CAR" among others.
We'll also pass strings with special symbols, such as "2A3*3a2", "2A3
3a2", and "2_A3*3#A2".
This is what I have for code right now again I'm working through this and using chrome dev tools to figure out what works and what doesn't.
function palindrome(str) {
// Good luck!
str = str.toLowerCase();
//str = str.replace(/\D\S/i);
str = str.replace(/\D\s/g, "");
for (var i = str.length -1; i >= 0; i--)
str += str[i];
}
palindrome("eye");
What I do not understand is when the below code is run in dev tools the "e" is missing.
str = str.replace(/\D\s/g, "");
"raccar"
So my question is what part of the regex am I miss understanding? From my understand the regex should only be getting rid of spaces and integers.

/\D\s/g is replacing any character not a digit, followed by a space with "".
So, in race car, the Regex matches "e " and replaces it with "", making the string raccar
For digit, you need to use \d. I think using an OR would get you what you want. So, you may try something like /\d|\s/g to get a digit or a space.
Hope this helps in some way in your understanding!

Regexp to capture comma separated values

I have a string that can be a comma separated list of \w, such as:
abc123
abc123,def456,ghi789
I am trying to find a JavaScript regexp that will return ['abc123'] (first case) or ['abc123', 'def456', 'ghi789'] (without the comma).
I tried:
^(\w+,?)+$ -- Nope, as only the last repeating pattern will be matched, 789
^(?:(\w+),?)+$ -- Same story. I am using non-capturing bracket. However, the capturing just doesn't seem to happen for the repeated word
Is what I am trying to do even possible with regexp? I tried pretty much every combination of grouping, using capturing and non-capturing brackets, and still not managed to get this happening...

If you want to discard the whole input when there is something wrong, the simplest way is to validate, then split:
if (/^\w+(,\w+)*$/.test(input)) {
var values = input.split(',');
// Process the values here
}
If you want to allow empty value, change \w+ to \w*.
Trying to match and validate at the same time with single regex requires emulation of \G feature, which assert the position of the last match. Why is \G required? Since it prevents the engine from retrying the match at the next position and bypass your validation. Remember than ECMA Script regex doesn't have look-behind, so you can't differentiate between the position of an invalid character and the character(s) after it:
something,=bad,orisit,cor&rupt
^^ ^^
When you can't differentiate between the 2 positions, you can't rely on the engine to do a match-all operation alone. While it is possible to use a while loop with RegExp.exec and assert the position of last match yourself, why would you do so when there is a cleaner option?
If you want to savage whatever available, torazaburo's answer is a viable option.

Live demo
Try this regex :
'/([^,]+)/'
Alternatively, strings in javascript have a split method that can split a string based on a delimeter:
s.split(',')

Split on the comma first, then filter out results that do not match:
str.split(',').filter(function(s) { return /^\w+$/.test(s); })

This regex pattern separates numerical value in new line which contains special character such as .,,,# and so on.
var val = [1234,1213.1212, 1.3, 1.4]
var re = /[0-9]*[0-9]/gi;

var str = "abc123,def456, asda12, 1a2ass, yy8,ghi789";
var re = /[a-z]{3}\d{3}/g;
var list = str.match(re);
document.write("<BR> list.length: " + list.length);
for(var i=0; i < list.length; i++) {
document.write("<BR>list(" + i + "): " + list[i]);
}
This will get only "abc123" code style in the list and nothing else.

May be you can use split function
var st = "abc123,def456,ghi789";
var res = st.split(',');

getting contents of string between digits

have a regex problem :(
what i would like to do is to find out the contents between two or more numbers.
var string = "90+*-+80-+/*70"
im trying to edit the symbols in between so it only shows up the last symbol and not the ones before it. so trying to get the above variable to be turned into 90+80*70. although this is just an example i have no idea how to do this. the length of the numbers, how many "sets" of numbers and the length of the symbols in between could be anything.
many thanks,
Steve,

The trick is in matching '90+-+' and '80-+/' seperately, and selecting only the number and the last constant.
The expression for finding the a number followed by 1 or more non-numbers would be
\d+[^\d]+
To select the number and the last non-number, add parens:
(\d+)[^\d]*([^\d])
Finally add a /g to repeat the procedure for each match, and replace it with the 2 matched groups for each match:
js> '90+*-+80-+/*70'.replace(/(\d+)[^\d]*([^\d])/g, '$1$2');
90+80*70
js>

Or you can use lookahead assertion and simply remove all non-numerical characters which are not last: "90+*-+80-+/*70".replace(/[^0-9]+(?=[^0-9])/g,'');

You can use a regular expression to match the non-digits and a callback function to process the match and decide what to replace:
var test = "90+*-+80-+/*70";
var out = test.replace(/[^\d]+/g, function(str) {
return(str.substr(-1));
})
alert(out);
See it work here: http://jsfiddle.net/jfriend00/Tncya/
This works by using a regular expression to match sequences of non-digits and then replacing that sequence of non-digits with the last character in the matched sequence.

i would use this tutorial, first, then review this for javascript-specific regex questions.

This should do it -
var string = "90+*-+80-+/*70"
var result = '';
var arr = string.split(/(\d+)/)
for (i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
if (!isNaN(arr[i])) result = result + arr[i];
else result = result + arr[i].slice(arr[i].length - 1, arr[i].length);
}
alert(result);
Working demo - http://jsfiddle.net/ipr101/SA2pR/

Similar to #Arnout Engelen
var string = "90+*-+80-+/*70";
string = string.replace(/(\d+)[^\d]*([^\d])(?=\d+)/g, '$1$2');
This was my first thinking of how the RegEx should perform, it also looks ahead to make sure the non-digit pattern is followed by another digit, which is what the question asked for (between two numbers)
Similar to #jfriend00
var string = "90+*-+80-+/*70";
string = string.replace( /(\d+?)([^\d]+?)(?=\d+)/g
, function(){
return arguments[1] + arguments[2].substr(-1);
});
Instead of only matching on non-digits, it matches on non-digits between two numbers, which is what the question asked
Why would this be any better?
If your equation was embedded in a paragraph or string of text. Like:
This is a test where I want to clean up something like 90+*-+80-+/*70 and don't want to scrap the whole paragraph.
Result (Expected) :
This is a test where I want to clean up something like 90+80*70 and don't want to scrap the whole paragraph.
Why would this not be any better?
There is more pattern matching, which makes it theoretically slower (negligible)
It would fail if your paragraph had embedded numbers. Like:
This is a paragraph where Sally bought 4 eggs from the supermarket, but only 3 of them made it back in one piece.
Result (Unexpected):
This is a paragraph where Sally bought 4 3 of them made it back in one piece.

java script Regular Expressions patterns problem

My problem start with like-
var str='0|31|2|03|.....|4|2007'
str=str.replace(/[^|]\d*[^|]/,'5');
so the output becomes like:"0|5|2|03|....|4|2007" so it replaces 31->5
But this doesn't work for replacing other segments when i change code like this:
str=str.replace(/[^|]{2}\d*[^|]/,'6');
doesn't change 2->6.
What actually i am missing here.Any help?

I think a regular expression is a bad solution for that problem. I'd rather do something like this:
var str = '0|31|2|03|4|2007';
var segments = str.split("|");
segments[1] = "35";
segments[2] = "123";
Can't think of a good way to solve this with a regexp.

Here is a specific regex solution which replaces the number following the first | pipe symbol with the number 5:
var re = /^((?:\d+\|){1})\d+/;
return text.replace(re, '$15');
If you want to replace the digits following the third |, simply change the {1} portion of the regex to {3}
Here is a generalized function that will replace any given number slot (zero-based index), with a specified new number:
function replaceNthNumber(text, n, newnum) {
var re = new RegExp("^((?:\\d+\\|){"+ n +'})\\d+');
return text.replace(re, '$1'+ newnum);
}

Firstly, you don't have to escape | in the character set, because it doesn't have any special meaning in character sets.
Secondly, you don't put quantifiers in character sets.
And finally, to create a global matching expression, you have to use the g flag.

[^\|] means anything but a '|', so in your case it only matches a digit. So it will only match anything with 2 or more digits.
Second you should put the {2} outside of the []-brackets
I'm not sure what you want to achieve here.

Using Regular Expressions with Javascript replace method

Friends,
I'm new to both Javascript and Regular Expressions and hope you can help!
Within a Javascript function I need to check to see if a comma(,) appears 1 or more times. If it does then there should be one or more numbers either side of it.
e.g.
1,000.00 is ok
1,000,00 is ok
,000.00 is not ok
1,,000.00 is not ok
If these conditions are met I want the comma to be removed so 1,000.00 becomes 1000.00
What I have tried so is:
var x = '1,000.00';
var regex = new RegExp("[0-9]+,[0-9]+", "g");
var y = x.replace(regex,"");
alert(y);
When run the alert shows ".00" Which is not what I was expecting or want!
Thanks in advance for any help provided.
strong text
Edit
strong text
Thanks all for the input so far and the 3 answers given. Unfortunately I don't think I explained my question well enough.
What I am trying to achieve is:
If there is a comma in the text and there are one or more numbers either side of it then remove the comma but leave the rest of the string as is.
If there is a comma in the text and there is not at least one number either side of it then do nothing.
So using my examples from above:
1,000.00 becomes 1000.00
1,000,00 becomes 100000
,000.00 is left as ,000.00
1,,000.00 is left as 1,,000.00
Apologies for the confusion!

Your regex isn't going to be very flexible with higher orders than 1000 and it has a problem with inputs which don't have the comma. More problematically you're also matching and replacing the part of the data you're interested in!
Better to have a regex which matches the forms which are a problem and remove them.
The following matches (in order) commas at the beginning of the input, at the end of the input, preceded by a number of non digits, or followed by a number of non digits.
var y = x.replace(/^,|,$|[^0-9]+,|,[^0-9]+/g,'');
As an aside, all of this is much easier if you happen to be able to do lookbehind but almost every JS implementation doesn't.
Edit based on question update:
Ok, I won't attempt to understand why your rules are as they are, but the regex gets simpler to solve it:
var y = x.replace(/(\d),(\d)/g, '$1$2');

I would use something like the following:
^[0-9]{1,3}(,[0-9]{3})*(\.[0-9]+)$
[0-9]{1,3}: 1 to 3 digits
(,[0-9]{3})*: [Optional] More digit triplets seperated by a comma
(\.[0-9]+): [Optional] Dot + more digits
If this regex matches, you know that your number is valid. Just replace all commas with the empty string afterwards.

It seems to me you have three error conditions
",1000"
"1000,"
"1,,000"
If any one of these is true then you should reject the field, If they are all false then you can strip the commas in the normal way and move on. This can be a simple alternation:
^,|,,|,$

I would just remove anything except digits and the decimal separator ([^0-9.]) and send the output through parseFloat():
var y = parseFloat(x.replace(/[^0-9.]+/g, ""));

// invalid cases:
// - standalone comma at the beginning of the string
// - comma next to another comma
// - standalone comma at the end of the string
var i,
inputs = ['1,000.00', '1,000,00', ',000.00', '1,,000.00'],
invalid_cases = /(^,)|(,,)|(,$)/;
for (i = 0; i < inputs.length; i++) {
if (inputs[i].match(invalid_cases) === null) {
// wipe out everything but decimal and dot
inputs[i] = inputs[i].replace(/[^\d.]+/g, '');
}
}
console.log(inputs); // ["1000.00", "100000", ",000.00", "1,,000.00"]