Grab full regex word if pattern inside it matches - javascript

How do I retrieve an entire word that has a specific portion of it that matches a regex?
For example, I have the below text.
Using ^.[\.\?\!:;,]{2,} , I match the first 3, but not the last. The last should be matched as well, but $ doesn't seem to produce anything.
a!!!!!!
n.......
c..,;,;,,
huhuhu..
I want to get all strings that have an occurrence of certain characters equal to or more than twice. I produced the aforementioned regex, but on Rubular it only matches the characters themselves, not the entire string. Using ^ and $
I've read a few stackoverflow posts similar, but not quite what I'm looking for.

Change your regex to:
/^.*[.?!:;,]{2,}/gm
i.e. match 0 more character before 2 of those special characters.
RegEx Demo

If I understand well you are trying to match an entire string that contains at least the same punctuation character two times:
^.*?([.?!:;,])\1.*
Note: if your string has newline characters, change .* to [\s\S]*
The trick is here:
([.?!:;,]) # captures the punct character in group 1
\1 # refers to the character captured in group 1

Related

How to not match given prefix in RegEx without negative lookbehind?

Goal
The goal is matching a string in JavaScript without certain delimiters, i.e. a string between two characters (the characters can be included in the match).
For example, this string should be fully matched: $ test string $. This can appear anywhere in a string. That would be trivial, however, we want to allow escaping the syntax, e.g. The price is 5\$ to 10\$.
Summarized:
Match any string that is enclosed by two $ signs.
Do not match it if the dollar signs are escaped using \$.
Solution using negative lookbehind
A solution that achieves this goal perfectly is: (?<!\\)\$(.*?)(?<!\\)\$.
Problem
This solution uses negative lookbehind, which is not supported on Safari. How can the same matches be achieved without using negative lookbehind (i.e. on Safari)?
A solution that partially works is (?<!\\)\$(.*?)(?<!\\)\$. However, this will also match the character in front of the $ sign if it is not a \.
You might rule out what you don't want by matching it, and capture what you want to keep in group 1
\\\$.*?\$|\$.*?\\\$|(\$.*?\$)
Regex demo
You may use this regex and grab your inner text using capture group #1 as you are already doing in your current regex using lookbehind:
(?:^|[^\\])\$((?:\\.|[^$])*)\$
RegEx Demo
RegEx Details:
(?:^|[^\\]): Match start position or a non-backslash character in a non-capturing group
\$: Match starting $
(: Start capturing group
(?:\\.|[^$])*: Match any escaped character or a non-$ character. Repeat this group 0 or more times
): End capturing group
\$: Match closing $
PS: This regex will give same matches as your current regex: (?<!\\)\$(.*?)(?<!\\)\$

Remove Last Instance Of Character From String - Javascript - Revisited

According to the accepted answer from this question, the following is the syntax for removing the last instance of a certain character from a string (In this case I want to remove the last &):
function remove (string) {
string = string.replace(/&([^&]*)$/, '$1');
return string;
}
console.log(remove("height=74&width=12&"));
But I'm trying to fully understand why it works.
According to regex101.com,
/&([^&]*)$/
& matches the character & literally (case sensitive)
1st Capturing Group ([^&]*)
Match a single character not present in the list below [^&]*
* Quantifier — Matches between zero and unlimited times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy)
& matches the character & literally (case sensitive)
$ asserts position at the end of the string, or before the line terminator right at the end of the string (if any)
So if we're matching the character & literally with the first &:
Then why are we also "matching a single character not present in the following list"?
Seems counter productive.
And then, "$ asserts position at the end of the string" - what does this mean? That it starts searching for matches from the back of the string first?
And finally, what is the $1 doing in the replaceValue? Why is it $1 instead of an empty string? ""
1- The solution for that problem I think is different to the solution you want:
That regex will replace the last "&" no matter where it is, in the middle or in the end of the string.
If you apply this regex to this two examples you will see that the first get "incorrectly" replaced:
height=74&width=12&test=1
height=74&width=12&test=1&
They get replaced as :
height=74&width=12test=1
height=74&width=12&test=1
So to really replace the last "&" the only thing you need to do is :
string.replace(/&$/, '');
Now, if you want to replace the last ocurrence of "&" no matter where it is, I will explain that regex :
$1 Represents a (capturing group), everything inside those ([^&]*) are captured inside that $1. This is a oversimplification.
&([^&]*)$
& Will match a literal "&" then in the following capturing group this regex will look for any amount (0 to infinite) of characters (NOT EQUAL TO "&", explained latter) until the end of the string or line (Depending on the flag you use in the regex, /m for matching lines ). Anything captured in this capturing group will go to $1 when you apply the replacement.
So, If you apply this logic in your mind you will see that it will always match the last & and replace it with anything on its right that does not contain a single "&""
&(<nothing-like-a-&>*)<until-we-reach-the-end> replaced by anything found inside (<nothing-like-a-&>*) == $1. In this case because of the use of * , it means 0 or more times, sometimes the capturing group $1 will be empty.
NOT EQUAL TO part:
The regex uses a [^], in simple terms [] represents a group of independent characters, example: [ab] or [ba] represents the same, it will always look for "a" or "b". Inside this you can also look for ranges like 0 to 9 like this [0-9ba], it will always match anything from 0 to 9, a or b.
The "^" here [^] represents a negation of the content, so, it will match anything not in this group, like [^0-9] will always match anything that is not a number. In your regex [^&] it was used for looking for anything that is not a "&"

How to make regex for 3 slashes?

I want to write regex for following
students/ad34567-06c1-498c-9b15-cdbac695c1f2/data/sessions
Where students, data and sessions should be exact match.
i have tried this
[students]\[a-z]\[a-z]\[a-z]
You can try this regex, although your question is not clear to me.
^students\/([\w\-\d]+)\/data\/sessions$
Check here https://regex101.com/r/xnxwCX/1
you can grab the data in between students/, /data/session.
In your regex [students]\\[a-z]\\[a-z]\\[a-z] you are trying to match with word students in a character class [students] which will match one of the specified characters instead of matching the whole word.
To match a forward slash you have to use \/ instead of //. [a-z] is specified without a quantifier and will match 1 character from a-z.
To match your example string you might use
^students\/[a-z0-9]+(?:-[a-z0-9]+)+\/data\/sessions$
Regex demo
This part [a-z0-9]+(?:-[a-z0-9]+)+ matches one or more times a lowercase character or a digit [a-z0-9]+
Following a non capturing group repeated one or more times that will match a hyphen followed by matching one or more times a lowercase character or a digit (?:-[a-z0-9]+)+
You might also use [a-f0-9] if your characters are a -f

Regex: How do I remove the character BEFORE the matched string?

I am intercepting messages which contain the following characters:
*_-
However, whenever any one of these characters comes through, it will always be preceded by a \. The \ is just for formatting though and I want to remove it before sending it off to my server. I know how to easily create a regex which would remove this backslash from a single letter:
'omg\_bbq\_everywhere'.replace(/\\_/g, '')
And I recognize I could just do this operation 3 times: once for each character I want to remove the preceding backslash for. But how can I create a single regex which would detect all three characters and remove the preceding backslash in all 3 cases?
You can use a character class like [*_-].
To remove only the backslash before these characters:
document.body.innerHTML =
"omg\\-bbq\\*everywhere\\-".replace(/\\([*_-])/g, '$1');
When you place a subpattern into a capturing group ((...)), you capture that subtext into a numbered buffer, and then you can reference it with a $1 backreference (1 because there is only one (...) in the pattern.)
This is a good time to use atomic matching. Specifically you want to check for the slash and then positive lookahead for any of those characters.
Ignoring the code, the raw regex you want is:
\\(?=[*_-])
A literal backslash, with one of these characters in front of it: *_-
So now you are matching the slash. The atomic match is a 0 length match, so it doesn't match anything, but sets a requirement that "for this to be a valid match, it needs to be followed by [*_-]"
Atomic groups: http://www.regular-expressions.info/atomic.html
Lookaround statements: http://www.regular-expressions.info/lookaround.html
Positive and negative lookahead and lookbehind matches are available.

JavaScript regular expressions to match no digits, whitespace and selected symbols

Thanks for taking a look.
My goal is to come up with a regexp that will match input that contains no digits, whitespace or the symbols !#£$%^&*()+= or any other symbol I may choose.
I am however struggling to grasp precisely how regular expressions work.
I started out with the simple pattern /\D/, which from my understanding will match the first non-digit character it can find. This would match the string 'James' which is correct but also 'James1' which I don't want.
So, my understanding is that if I want to ensure that a pattern is not found anywhere in a given string, I use the ^ and $ characters, as in /^\D$/. Now because this will only match a single character that is not a digit, I needed to use + to specify that 1 or more digits should not be founds in the entire string, giving me the expression /^\D+$/. Brilliant, it no longer matches 'James1'.
Question 1
Is my reasoning up to this point correct?
The next requirement was to ensure no whitespace is in the given string. \s will match a single whitespace and [^\s] will match the first non-whitespace character. So, from my understanding I just had to add this to what I have already to match strings that contain no digits and no whitespace. Again, because [^\s] will only match a single non-white space character, I used + to match one or more whitespace characters, giving the new regexp of /^\D+[^\s]+$/.
This is where I got lost, as the expression now matches 'James1' or even 'James Smith25'. What? Massively confused at this point.
Question 2
Why is /^\D+[^\s]+$/ matching strings that contain spaces?
Question 3
How would I go about writing the regular expression I'm trying to solve?
While I am keen to solve the problem I am more interested in figuring where my understanding of regular expressions is lacking, so any explanations would be helpful.
Not quite; ^ and $ are actually "anchors" - they mean "start" and "end", it's actually a little more complicated, but you can consider them to mean the start and end of a line for now - look up the various modifiers on regular expressions if you're interested in learning more about this. Unfortunately ^ has an overloaded meaning; if used inside square brackets it means "not", which is the meaning you are already acquainted with. It's very important that you understand the difference between these two meanings and that the definition in your head actually applies only to character range matching!
Contributing further to your confusion is that \d means "a numerical digit" and \D means "not a numerical digit". Similarly \s means "a whitespace (space/tab/newline/etc.) character" and \S means "not a whitespace character."
It's worth noting that \d is effectively a shortcut for [0-9] (note that - has a special meaning inside square brackets), and \D is a shortcut for [^0-9].
The reason it's matching strings that contain spaces is that you've asked for "1+ non-numerical digits followed by 1+ non-space characters" - so it'll match lots of strings! I think that perhaps you don't understand that regular expressions match bits of strings, you're not adding constraints as you go, but rather building up bots of matchers that will match bits of corresponding strings.
/^[^\d\s!#£$%^&*()+=]+$/ is the answer you're looking for - I'd look at it like this:
i. [] - match a range of characters
ii. []+ - match one or more of that range of characters
iii. [^\d\s]+ - match one or more characters that do not match \d (numerical digit) or \s (whitespace)
iv. [^\d\s!#£$%^&*()+=]+ - here's a bunch of other characters I don't want you to match
v. ^[^\d\s!#£$%^&*()+=]+$ - now there are anchors applied, so this matcher has to apply to the whole line otherwise it fails to match
A useful website to explore regexs is http://regexr.com/3b9h7 - which I supply with my suggested solution as an example. Edit: Pruthvi Raj's link to debuggerx is awesome!
Is my reasoning up to this point correct?
Almost. /\D/ matches any character other than a digit, but not just the first one (if you use g option).
and [^\s] will match the first non-whitespace character
Almost, [^\s] will match any non-whitespace character, not just the first one (if you use g option).
/^\D+[^\s]+$/ matching strings that contain spaces?
Yes, it does, because \D matches a space (space is not a digit).
Why is /^\D+[^\s]+$/ matching strings that contain spaces?
Because \D+ in /^\D+[^\s]+$/can match spaces.
Conclusion:
Use
^[^\d\s!#£$%^&*()+=]+$
It will match strings that have no digits and spaces, and the symbols you do not allow.
Mind that to match a literal -, ] or [ with a character class, you either need to escape them, or use at the start or end of the expression. To play it safe, escape them.
Just insert every character you don't want to include in a negated character class as follows:
^[^\s\d!#£$%^&*()+=]*$
DEMO
Debuggex Demo
^ - start of the string
[^...] - matches one character that is not in `...`
\s - matches a whitespace (space, newline,tab)
\d - matches a digit from 0 to 9
* - a quantifier that repeats immediately preceeding element by 0 or more times
so the regex matches any string that has
1. string that has a beginning
2. containing 0 or more number of characters that is not whitesapce, digit, and all the symbols included in the character class ( In this example !#£$%^&*()+=) i.e., characters that are not included in the character class `[...]`
3.that has ending
NOTE:
If the symbols you don't want it to have also includes - , a hyphen, don't put it in between some other characters because it is a metacharacter in character class, put it at last of character class

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