I have spent the last couple of hours trying to figure out how to match all whitespace (\s) unless followed by AND\s or preceded by \sAND.
I have this so far
\s(?!AND\s)
but it is then matching the space after \sAND, but I don't want that.
Any help would be appreciated.
Often, when you want to split by a single character that appears in specific context, you can replace the approach with a matching one.
I suggest matching all sequences of non-whitespace characters joined with AND enclosed with whitespace ones before and then match any other non-whitespace sequences. Thus, we'll ensure we get an array of necessary substrings:
\S+\sAND\s\S+|\S+
See regex demo
I assume the \sAND\s pattern appears between some non-whitespace characters.
var re = /\S+\sAND\s\S+|\S+/g;
var str = 'split this but don\'t split this AND this';
var res = str.match(re);
document.write(JSON.stringify(res));
As Alan Moore suggests, the alternation can be unrolled into \S+(?:\sAND\s\S+)*:
\S+ - 1 or more non-whitespace characters
(?:\sAND\s\S+)* - 0 or more (thus, it is optional) sequences of...
\s - one whitespace (add + to match 1 or more)
AND - literal AND character sequence
\s - one whitespace (add + to match 1 or more)
\S+ - one or more non-whitespace symbols.
Since JS doesn't support lookbehinds, you can use the following trick:
Match (\sAND\s)|\s
Throw away any match where $1 has a value
Here's a short example which replaces the spaces you want with an underscore:
var str = "split this but don't split this AND this";
str = str.replace(/(\sAND\s)|\s/g, function(m, a) {
return a ? m : "_";
});
document.write(str);
Related
Let's say I have the following string in javascript:
&a.b.c. &a.b.c& .&a.b.c.&. *;a.b.c&*. a.b&.c& .&a.b.&&dc.& &ê.b..c&
I want to remove all the leading and trailing special characters (anything which is not alphanumeric or alphabet in another language) from all the words.
So the string should look like
a.b.c a.b.c a.b.c a.b.c a.b&.c a.b.&&dc ê.b..c
Notice how the special characters in between the alphanumeric is left behind. The last ê is also left behind.
This regex should do what you want. It looks for
start of line, or some spaces (^| +) captured in group 1
some number of symbol characters [!-\/:-#\[-``\{-~]*
a minimal number of non-space characters ([^ ]*?) captured in group 2
some number of symbol characters [!-\/:-#\[-``\{-~]*
followed by a space or end-of-line (using a positive lookahead) (?=\s|$)
Matches are replaced with just groups 1 and 2 (the spacing and the characters between the symbols).
let str = '&a.b.c. &a.b.c& .&a.b.c.&. *;a.b.c&*. a.b&.c& .&a.b.&&dc.& &ê.b..c&';
str = str.replace(/(^| +)[!-\/:-#\[-`\{-~]*([^ ]*?)[!-\/:-#\[-`\{-~]*(?=\s|$)/gi, '$1$2');
console.log(str);
Note that if you want to preserve a string of punctuation characters on their own (e.g. as in Apple & Sauce), you should change the second capture group to insist on there being one or more non-space characters (([^ ]+?)) instead of none and add a lookahead after the initial match of punctuation characters to assert that the next character is not punctuation:
let str = 'Apple &&& Sauce; -This + !That!';
str = str.replace(/(^| +)[!-\/:-#\[-`\{-~]*(?![!-\/:-#\[-`\{-~])([^ ]+?)[!-\/:-#\[-`\{-~]*(?=\s|$)/gi, '$1$2');
console.log(str);
a-zA-Z\u00C0-\u017F is used to capture all valid characters, including diacritics.
The following is a single regular expression to capture each individual word. The logic is that it will look for the first valid character as the beginning of the capture group, and then the last sequence of invalid characters before a space character or string terminator as the end of the capture group.
const myRegEx = /[^a-zA-Z\u00C0-\u017F]*([a-zA-Z\u00C0-\u017F].*?[a-zA-Z\u00C0-\u017F]*)[^a-zA-Z\u00C0-\u017F]*?(\s|$)/g;
let myString = '&a.b.c. &a.b.c& .&a.b.c.&. *;a.b.c&*. a.b&.c& .&a.b.&&dc.& &ê.b..c&'.replace(myRegEx, '$1$2');
console.log(myString);
Something like this might help:
const string = '&a.b.c. &a.b.c& .&a.b.c.&. *;a.b.c&*. a.b&.c& .&a.b.&&dc.& &ê.b..c&';
const result = string.split(' ').map(s => /^[^a-zA-Z0-9ê]*([\w\W]*?)[^a-zA-Z0-9ê]*$/g.exec(s)[1]).join(' ');
console.log(result);
Note that this is not one single regex, but uses JS help code.
Rough explanation: We first split the string into an array of strings, divided by spaces. We then transform each of the substrings by stripping
the leading and trailing special characters. We do this by capturing all special characters with [^a-zA-Z0-9ê]*, because of the leading ^ character it matches all characters except those listed, so all special characters. Between these two groups we capture all relevant characters with ([\w\W]*?). \w catches words, \W catches non-words, so \w\W catches all possible characters. By appending the ? after the *, we make the quantifier * lazy, so that the group stops catching as soon as the next group, which catches trailing special characters, catches something. We also start the regex with a ^ symbol and end it with an $ symbol to capture the entire string (they respectively set anchors to the start end the end of the string). With .exec(s)[1] we then execute the regex on the substring and return the first capturing group result in our transform function. Note that this might be null if a substring does not include proper characters. At the end we join the substrings with spaces.
I want to match everything except the one with the string '1AB' in it. How do I do that? When I tried it, it said nothing is matched.
var text = "match1ABmatch match2ABmatch match3ABmatch";
var matches = text.match(/match(?!1AB)match/g);
console.log(matches[0]+"..."+matches[1]);
Lookarounds do not consume the text, i.e. the regex index does not move when their patterns are matched. See Lookarounds Stand their Ground for more details. You still must match the text with a consuming pattern, here, the digits.
Add \w+ word matching pattern after the lookahead. NOTE: You may also use \S+ if there can be any one or more non-whitespace chars. If there can be any chars, use .+ (to match 1 or more chars other than line break chars) or [^]+ (matches even line breaks).
var text = "match100match match200match match300match";
var matches = text.match(/match(?!100(?!\d))\w+match/g);
console.log(matches);
Pattern details
match - a literal substring
(?!100(?!\d)) - a negative lookahead that fails the match if, immediately to the right of the current location, there is 100 substring not followed with a digit (if you want to fail the matches where the number starts with 100, remove the (?!\d) lookahead)
\w+ - 1 or more word chars (letters, digits or _)
match - a literal substring
See the regex demo online.
I'm trying to find a regular expression that will match the base string without the optional trailing number (_123). e.g.:
lorem_ipsum_test1_123 -> capture lorem_ipsum_test1
lorem_ipsum_test2 -> capture lorem_ipsum_test2
I tried using the following expression, but it would only work when there is a trailing _number.
/(.+)(?>_[0-9]+)/
/(.+)(?>_[0-9]+)?/
Similarly, adding the ? (zero or more) quantifier only worked when there is no trailing _number, otherwise, the trailing _number would just be part of the first capture.
Any suggestions?
You may use the following expression:
^(?:[^_]+_)+(?!\d+$)[^_]+
^ Anchor beginning of string.
(?:[^_]+_)+ Repeated non capturing group. Negated character set for anything other than a _, followed by a _.
(?!\d+$) Negative lookahead for digits at the end of the string.
[^_]+ Negated character set for anything other than a _.
Regex demo here.
Please note that the \n in the character sets in the Regex demo are only for demonstration purposes, and should by all means be removed when using as a pattern in Javascript.
Javascript demo:
var myString = "lorem_ipsum_test1_123";
var myRegexp = /^(?:[^_]+_)+(?!\d+$)[^_]+/g;
var match = myRegexp.exec(myString);
console.log(match[0]);
var myString = "lorem_ipsum_test2"
var myRegexp = /^(?:[^_]+_)+(?!\d+$)[^_]+/g;
var match = myRegexp.exec(myString);
console.log(match[0]);
You might match any character and use a negative lookahead that asserts that what follows is not an underscore, one or more digits and the end of the string:
^(?:(?!_\d+$).)*
Explanation
^ Assert start of the string
(?: Non capturing group
(?! Negative lookahead to assert what is on the right side is not
_\d+$Match an underscore, one or more digits and assert end of the string
.) Match any character and close negative lookahead
)* Close non capturing group and repeat zero or more times
Regex demo
const strings = [
"lorem_ipsum_test1_123",
"lorem_ipsum_test2"
];
let pattern = /^(?:(?!_\d+$).)*/;
strings.forEach((s) => {
console.log(s + " ==> " + s.match(pattern)[0]);
});
You are asking for
/^(.*?)(?:_\d+)?$/
See the regex demo. The point here is that the first dot pattern must be non-greedy and the _\d+ should be wrapped with an optional non-capturing group and the whole pattern (especially the end) must be enclosed with anchors.
Details
^ - start of string
(.*?) - Capturing group 1: any zero or more chars other than line break chars, as few as possible due to the non-greedy ("lazy") quantifier *?
(?:_\d+)? - an optional non-capturing group matching 1 or 0 occurrences of _ and then 1+ digits
$ - end of string.
However, it seems easier to use a mere replacing approach,
s = s.replace(/_\d+$/, '')
If the string ends with _ and 1+ digits, the substring will get removed, else, the string will not change.
See this regex demo.
Try to check if the string contains the trailing number. If it does you get only the other part. Otherwise you get the whole string.
var str = "lorem_ipsum_test1_123"
if(/_[0-9]+$/.test(str)) {
console.log(str.match(/(.+)(?=_[0-9]+)/g))
} else {
console.log(str)
}
Or, a lot more concise:
str = str.replace(/_[0-9]+$/g, "")
I am trying to do a basic string replace using a regex expression, but the answers I have found do not seem to help - they are directly answering each persons unique requirement with little or no explanation.
I am using str = str.replace(/[^a-z0-9+]/g, ''); at the moment. But what I would like to do is allow all alphanumeric characters (a-z and 0-9) and also the '-' character.
Could you please answer this and explain how you concatenate expressions.
This should work :
str = str.replace(/[^a-z0-9-]/g, '');
Everything between the indicates what your are looking for
/ is here to delimit your pattern so you have one to start and one to end
[] indicates the pattern your are looking for on one specific character
^ indicates that you want every character NOT corresponding to what follows
a-z matches any character between 'a' and 'z' included
0-9 matches any digit between '0' and '9' included (meaning any digit)
- the '-' character
g at the end is a special parameter saying that you do not want you regex to stop on the first character matching your pattern but to continue on the whole string
Then your expression is delimited by / before and after.
So here you say "every character not being a letter, a digit or a '-' will be removed from the string".
Just change + to -:
str = str.replace(/[^a-z0-9-]/g, "");
You can read it as:
[^ ]: match NOT from the set
[^a-z0-9-]: match if not a-z, 0-9 or -
/ /g: do global match
More information:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/JavaScript/Guide/Regular_Expressions
Your character class (the part in the square brackets) is saying that you want to match anything except 0-9 and a-z and +. You aren't explicit about how many a-z or 0-9 you want to match, but I assume the + means you want to replace strings of at least one alphanumeric character. It should read instead:
str = str.replace(/[^-a-z0-9]+/g, "");
Also, if you need to match upper-case letters along with lower case, you should use:
str = str.replace(/[^-a-zA-Z0-9]+/g, "");
str = str.replace(/\W/g, "");
This will be a shorter form
We can use /[a-zA-Z]/g to select small letter and caps letter sting in the word or sentence and replace.
var str = 'MM-DD-yyyy'
var modifiedStr = str.replace(/[a-zA-Z]/g, '_')
console.log(modifiedStr)
I am in need for a regex in Javascript. I have a string:
'*window.some1.some\.2.(a.b + ")" ? cc\.c : d.n [a.b, cc\.c]).some\.3.(this.o.p ? ".mike." [ff\.]).some5'
I want to split this string by periods such that I get an array:
[
'*window',
'some1',
'some\.2', //ignore the . because it's escaped
'(a.b ? cc\.c : d.n [a.b, cc\.c])', //ignore everything inside ()
'some\.3',
'(this.o.p ? ".mike." [ff\.])',
'some5'
]
What regex will do this?
var string = '*window.some1.some\\.2.(a.b + ")" ? cc\\.c : d.n [a.b, cc\\.c]).some\\.3.(this.o.p ? ".mike." [ff\\.]).some5';
var pattern = /(?:\((?:(['"])\)\1|[^)]+?)+\)+|\\\.|[^.]+?)+/g;
var result = string.match(pattern);
result = Array.apply(null, result); //Convert RegExp match to an Array
Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/66Zfh/3/
Explanation of the RegExp. Match a consecutive set of characters, satisfying:
/ Start of RegExp literal
(?: Create a group without reference (example: say, group A)
\( `(` character
(?: Create a group without reference (example: say, group B)
(['"]) ONE `'` OR `"`, group 1, referable through `\1` (inside RE)
\) `)` character
\1 The character as matched at group 1, either `'` or `"`
| OR
[^)]+? Any non-`)` character, at least once (see below)
)+ End of group (B). Let this group occur at least once
| OR
\\\. `\.` (escaped backslash and dot, because they're special chars)
| OR
[^.]+? Any non-`.` character, at least once (see below)
)+ End of group (A). Let this group occur at least once
/g "End of RegExp, global flag"
/*Summary: Match everything which is not satisfying the split-by-dot
condition as specified by the OP*/
There's a difference between + and +?. A single plus attempts to match as much characters as possible, while a +? matches only these characters which are necessary to get the RegExp match. Example: 123 using \d+? > 1 and \d+ > 123.
The String.match method performs a global match, because of the /g, global flag. The match function with the g flag returns an array consisting of all matches subsequences.
When the g flag is omitted, only the first match will be selected. The array will then consist of the following elements:
Index 0: <Whole match>
Index 1: <Group 1>
The regex below :
result = subject.match(/(?:(\(.*?[^'"]\)|.*?[^\\])(?:\.|$))/g);
Can be used to acquire the desired results. Group 1 has the results since you want to omit the .
Use this :
var myregexp = /(?:(\(.*?[^'"]\)|.*?[^\\])(?:\.|$))/g;
var match = myregexp.exec(subject);
while (match != null) {
for (var i = 0; i < match.length; i++) {
// matched text: match[i]
}
match = myregexp.exec(subject);
}
Explanation :
// (?:(\(.*?[^'"]\)|.*?[^\\])(?:\.|$))
//
// Match the regular expression below «(?:(\(.*?[^'"]\)|.*?[^\\])(?:\.|$))»
// Match the regular expression below and capture its match into backreference number 1 «(\(.*?[^'"]\)|.*?[^\\])»
// Match either the regular expression below (attempting the next alternative only if this one fails) «\(.*?[^'"]\)»
// Match the character “(” literally «\(»
// Match any single character that is not a line break character «.*?»
// Between zero and unlimited times, as few times as possible, expanding as needed (lazy) «*?»
// Match a single character NOT present in the list “'"” «[^'"]»
// Match the character “)” literally «\)»
// Or match regular expression number 2 below (the entire group fails if this one fails to match) «.*?[^\\]»
// Match any single character that is not a line break character «.*?»
// Between zero and unlimited times, as few times as possible, expanding as needed (lazy) «*?»
// Match any character that is NOT a “A \ character” «[^\\]»
// Match the regular expression below «(?:\.|$)»
// Match either the regular expression below (attempting the next alternative only if this one fails) «\.»
// Match the character “.” literally «\.»
// Or match regular expression number 2 below (the entire group fails if this one fails to match) «$»
// Assert position at the end of the string (or before the line break at the end of the string, if any) «$»
It is notoriously difficult to use a Regex to do balanced parenthesis matching, especially in Javascript.
You would be way better off creating your own parser. Here's a clever way to do this that will utilize the strength of Regex's:
Create a Regex that matches and captures any "pattern of interest" - /(?:(\\.)|([\(\[\{])|([\)\]\}])|(\.))/g
Use string.replace(pattern, function (...)), and in the function, keep a count of opening braces and closing braces.
Add the matching text to a buffer.
If the split character is found and the opening and closing braces are balanced, add the buffer to your results array.
This solution will take a bit of work, and requires knowledge of closures, and you should probably see the documentation of string.replace, but I think it is a great way to solve your problem!
Update:
After noticing the number of questions related to this one, I decided to take on the above challenge.
Here is the live code to use a Regex to split a string.
This code has the following features:
Uses a Regex pattern to find the splits
Only splits if there are balanced parenthesis
Only splits if there are balanced quotes
Allows escaping of parenthesis, quotes, and splits using \
This code will work perfectly for your example.
not need regex for this work.
var s = '*window.some1.some\.2.(a.b + ")" ? cc\.c : d.n [a.b, cc\.c]).some\.3.(this.o.p ? ".mike." [ff\.]).some5';
console.log(s.match(/(?:\([^\)]+\)|.*?\.)/g));
output:
["*window.", "some1.", "some.", "2.", "(a.b + ")", "" ? cc.", "c : d.", "n [a.", "b, cc.", "c]).", "some.", "3.", "(this.o.p ? ".mike." [ff.])", "."]
So, was working with this, and now I see that #FailedDev is rather not a failure, since that was pretty nice. :)
Anyhow, here's my solution. I'll just post the regex only.
((\(.*?((?<!")\)(?!")))|((\\\.)|([^.]))+)
Sadly this won't work in your case however, since I'm using negative lookbehind, which I don't think is supported by javascript regex engine. It should work as intended in other engines however, as can be confirmed here: http://gskinner.com/RegExr/. Replace with $1\n.