I have an input string like this:
ABCDEFG[HIJKLMN]OPQRSTUVWXYZ
How can I replace each character in the string between the [] with an X (resulting in the same number of Xs as there were characters)?
For example, with the input above, I would like an output of:
ABCDEFG[XXXXXXX]OPQRSTUVWXYZ
I am using JavaScript's RegEx for this and would prefer if answers could be an implementation that does this using JavaScript's RegEx Replace function.
I am new to RegEx so please explain what you do and (if possible) link articles to where I can get further help.
Using replace() and passing the match to a function as parameter, and then Array(m.length).join("X") to generate the X's needed:
var str = "ABCDEFG[HIJKLMN]OPQRSTUVWXYZ"
str = str.replace(/\[[A-Z]*\]/g,(m)=>"["+Array(m.length-1).join("X")+"]")
console.log(str);
We could use also .* instead of [A-Z] in the regex to match any character.
About regular expressions there are thousands of resources, specifically in JavaScript, you could see Regular Expressions MDN but the best way to learn, in my opinion, is practicing, I find regex101 useful.
const str="ABCDEFG[HIJKLMN]OPQRSTUVWXYZ";
const run=str=>str.replace(/\[.*]/,(a,b,c)=>c=a.replace(/[^\[\]]/g,x=>x="X"));
console.log(run(str));
The first pattern /\[.*]/ is to select letters inside bracket [] and the second pattern /[^\[\]]/ is to replace the letters to "X"
We can observe that every individual letter you wish to match is followed by a series of zero or more non-'[' characters, until a ']' is found. This is quite simple to express in JavaScript-friendly regex:
/[A-Z](?=[^\[]*\])/g
regex101 example
(?= ) is a "positive lookahead assertion"; it peeks ahead of the current matching point, without consuming characters, to verify its contents are matched. In this case, "[^[]*]" matches exactly what I described above.
Now you can substitute each [A-Z] matched with a single 'X'.
You can use the following solution to replace a string between two square brackets:
const rxp = /\[.*?\]/g;
"ABCDEFG[HIJKLMN]OPQRSTUVWXYZ".replace(rxp, (x) => {
return x.replace(rxp, "X".repeat(x.length)-2);
});
Related
I have the regular expression:
const regex = /^\d*\.?\d{0,2}$/
and its inverse (I believe) of
const inverse = /^(?!\d*\.?\d{0,2}$)/
The first regex is validating the string fits any positive number, allowing a decimal and two decimal digits (e.g. 150, 14., 7.4, 12.68). The second regex is the inverse of the first, and doing some testing I'm fairly confident it's giving the expected result, as it only validates when the string is anything but a number that may have a decimal and two digits after (e.g. 12..05, a5, 54.357).
My goal is to remove any characters from the string that do not fit the first regex. I thought I could do that this way:
let myString = '123M.45';
let fixed = myString.replace(inverse, '');
But this does not work as intended. To debug, I tried having the replace character changed to something I would be able to see:
let fixed = myString.replace(inverse, 'ZZZ');
When I do this, fixed becomes: ZZZ123M.45
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I think I understand your logic here trying to find a regex that is the inverse of the regex that matches your valid string, in the hopes that it will allow you to remove any characters that make your string invalid and leave only the valid string. However, I don't think replace() will allow you to solve your problem in this way. From the MDN docs:
The replace() method returns a new string with some or all matches of a pattern replaced by a replacement.
In your inverse pattern you are using a negative lookahead. If we take a simple example of X(?!Y) we can think of this as "match X if not followed by Y". In your pattern your "X" is ^ and your "Y" is \d*\.?\d{0,2}$. From my understanding, the reason you are getting ZZZ123M.45 is that it is finding the first ^ (i.e, the start of the string) that is not followed by your pattern \d*\.?\d{0,2}$, and since 123M.45 doesn't match your "Y" pattern, your negative lookahead is satisfied and the beginning of your string is matched and "replaced" with ZZZ.
That (I think) is an explanation of what you are seeing.
I would propose an alternative solution to your problem that better fits with how I understand the .replace() method. Instead of your inverse pattern, try this one:
const invalidChars = /[^\d\.]|\.(?=\.)|(?<=\.\d\d)\d*/g
const myString = '123M..456444';
const fixed = myString.replace(invalidChars, '');
Here I am using a pattern that I think will match the individual characters that you want to remove. Let's break down what this one is doing:
[^\d\.]: match characters that are not digits
\.(?=\.): match . character if it is followed by another . character.
(?<=\.\d\d)\d*: match digits that are preceded by a decimal and 2 digits
Then I join all these with ORs (|) so it will match any one of the above patterns, and I use the g flag so that it will replace all the matches, not just the first one.
I am not sure if this will cover all your use cases, but I thought I would give it a shot. Here's a link to a breakdown that might be more helpful than mine, and you can use this tool to tweak the pattern if necessary.
I don't think you can do this
remove any characters from the string that do not fit the first regex
Because regex matching is meant for the entire string, and replace is used to replace just a PART inside that string. So the Regex inside replace must be a Regex to match unwanted characters only, not inverted Regex.
What you could do is to validate the string with your original regex, then if it's not valid, replace and validate again.
//if (notValid), replace unwanted character
// replace everything that's not a dot or digit
const replaceRegex = /[^\d.]/g; // notice g flag here to match every occurrence
const myString = '123M.45';
const fixed = myString.replace(replaceRegex, '');
console.log(fixed)
// validate again
I have string [FBWS-1] comes first than [FBWS-2]
In this string, I want to find all occurance of [FBWS-NUMBER]
I tried this :
var term = "[FBWS-1] comes first than [FBWS-2]";
alert(/^([[A-Z]-[0-9]])$/.test(term));
I want to get all the NUMBERS where [FBWS-NUMBER] string is matched.
But no success. I m new to regular expressions.
Can anyone help me please.
Note that ^([[A-Z]-[0-9]])$ matches start of a string (^), a [ or an uppercase ASCII letter (with [[A-Z]), -, an ASCII digit and a ] char at the end of the string. So,basically, strings like [-2] or Z-3].
You may use
/\[[A-Z]+-[0-9]+]/g
See the regex demo.
NOTE If you need to "hardcode" FBWS (to only match values like FBWS-123 and not ABC-3456), use it instead of [A-Z]+ in the pattern, /\[FBWS-[0-9]+]/g.
Details
\[ - a [ char
[A-Z]+ - one or more (due to + quantifier) uppercase ASCII letters
- - a hyphen
[0-9]+ - one or more (due to + quantifier) ASCII digits
] - a ] char.
The /g modifier used with String#match() returns all found matches.
JS demo:
var term = "[FBWS-1] comes first than [FBWS-2]";
console.log(term.match(/\[[A-Z]+-[0-9]+]/g));
You can use:
[\w+-\d]
var term = "[FBWS-1] comes first than [FBWS-2]";
alert(/[\w+-\d]/.test(term));
There are several reasons why your existing regex doesn't work.
You trying to match the beginning and ending of your string when you
actually want everything in between, don't use ^$
Your only trying to match one alpha character [A-Z] you need to make this greedy using the +
You can shorten [A-Z] and [0-9] by using the shorthands \w and \d. The brackets are generally unnecessary.
Note your code only returns a true false value (your using test) ATM it's unclear if this is what you want. You may want to use match with a global modifier (//g) instead of test to get a collection.
Here is an example using string.match(reg) to get all matches strings:
var term = "[FBWS-1] comes first than [FBWS-2]";
var reg1 = /\[[A-Z]+-[0-9]\]/g;
var reg2 = /\[FBWS-[0-9]\]/g;
var arr1 = term.match(reg1);
var arr2 = term.match(reg2)
console.log(arr1);
console.log(arr2);
Your regular expression /^([[A-Z]-[0-9]])$/ is wrong.
Give this regex a try, /\[FBWS-\d\]/g
remove the g if you only want to find 1 match, as g will find all similar matches
Edit: Someone mentioned that you want ["any combination"-"number"], hence if that's what you're looking for then this should work /\[[A-Z]+-\d\]/
I am trying to find a way to extract the numbers that occur after abc/ immediately succeeding the / and before any further letters, numbers or punctuation.
E.g:
abc/134567/something should return 1234567
abc/1234567?foo=bar should still only return 1234567
blah/1234/abc/678 should only return 678 as I'm looking only for the number that succeeds abc/
I'm aware there are two options: regex or substring match.
In order to perform the substring match I need the index point but I'm dubious about merely doing an indexOf("abc/") as it only returns the index of the first letter - a - which could be present elsewhere in the string.
With regex I have struggled as I find that searching for a mixture of the letters and the slashes seems to cause it to return null.
So what's the best way?
You can use this regexpression :
var rgx = new RegExp("abc\/([0-9]+)","gi");
Then :
var m = rgx.exec("abc/1234567?foo=bar");
console.log(m[0]);
edited after comments
You could use a regular expression and seach for abc/ and following digits.
var array = ['abc/134567/something', 'abc/1234567?foo=bar', 'blah/1234/abc/678'];
console.log(array.map(s => s.match(/abc\/(\d+)/)[1]));
We accept string that has abc/, after it an integer number, that is taken as a matched group and either the end of string or some non-digit symbol after it.
abc\/(\d+)(?:$|\D)
test
You'll use in Javascript for matched group extraction:
var myRegexp = /abc\/(\d+)(?:$|\D)/g;
var match = myRegexp.exec(inputString);
var result=match[1]; // the number after abc/
In another regex engine than that of JavaScript, lookahead and lookbehind could be used. But in JS lookbehinds are forbidden. :-(. So we have to use this, a bit more complicated, way.
Are you after something like this:
^(.*\/)(\d+)(.*)
Where the second group will give you the digits after the slash.
Look at the regex here
I am having a difficult time getting a seemingly simple Regexp. I am trying to grab the last occurrences of word characters between square brackets in a string. My code:
pattern = /\[(\w+)\]/g;
var text = "item[gemstones_attributes][0][shape]";
if (pattern.test(text)) {
alert(RegExp.lastMatch);
}
The above code is outputting "gemstones_attributes", when I want it to output "shape". Why is this regexp not working, or is there something wrong with my approach to getting the last match? I'm sure that I am making an obvious mistake - regular expressions have never been my string suit.
Edit:
There are cases in which the string will not terminate with a right-bracket.
You can greedily match as much as possible before your pattern which will result in your group matching only the last match:
pattern = /.*\[(\w+)\]/g;
var text = "item[gemstones_attributes][0][shape]";
var match = pattern.exec(text);
if (match != null) alert(match[1]);
RegExp.lastMatch gives the match of the last regular expression. It isn't the last match in the text.
Regular expressions parse left to right and are greedy. So your regexp matches the first '[' it sees and grabs the words between it. When you call lastMatch it gives you the last pattern matched. What you need is to match everything you can first .* and then your pattern.
i think your problem is in your regex not in your src line .lastMatch.
Your regex returns just the first match of your square brackets and not all matches. You can try to add some groups to your regular expression - and normally you should get all matches.
krikit
Use match() instead of test()
if (text.match(pattern))
test() checks for a match inside a string. This is successfull after the first occurence, so there is no need for further parsing.
I've got a string which contains q="AWORD" and I want to replace q="AWORD" with q="THEWORD". However, I don't know what AWORD is.. is it possible to combine a string and a regex to allow me to replace the parameter without knowing it's value? This is what I've got thus far...
globalparam.replace('q="/+./"', 'q="AWORD"');
What you have is just a string, not a regular expression. I think this is what you want:
globalparam.replace(/q=".+?"/, 'q="THEWORD"');
I don't know how you got the idea why you have to "combine" a string and a regular expression, but a regex does not need to exist of wildcards only. A regex is like a pattern that can contain wildcards but otherwise will try to match the exact characters given.
The expression shown above works as follows:
q=": Match the characters q, = and ".
.+?": Match any character (.) up to (and including) the next ". There must be at least one character (+) and the match is non-greedy (?), meaning it tries to match as few characters as possible. Otherwise, if you used .+", it would match all characters up to the last quotation mark in the string.
Learn more about regular expressions.
Felix's answer will give you the solution, but if you actually want to construct a regular expression using a string you can do it this way:
var fullstring = 'q="AWORD"';
var sampleStrToFind = 'AWORD';
var mat = 'q="'+sampleStrToFind+'"';
var re = new RegExp(mat);
var newstr = fullstring.replace(re,'q="THEWORD"');
alert(newstr);
mat = the regex you are building, combining strings or whatever is needed.
re = RegExp constructor, if you wanted to do global, case sensitivity, etc do it here.
The last line is string.replace(RegExp,replacement);