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Regex to validate URL hash not working in Javascript

I have the following code for checking the URL hash part and extract the query strings.
var getCleanHash = function(){
return (/^[a-z-_&=\d]*$/.test(location.hash.substr(1))) ? location.hash.substr(1) : "";
}
so the regex used here is /^[a-z-_&=\d]*$/, but if I have the query strings like type=mytype&q=search, it is returning empty value. If I remove the ^ from the regex, it starts returning the query strings. But then it will not perform any checks as intended in regex. I suppose ^ denotes the first character, but not entirely sure why it doesn't match with my query string part.
Can someone help me to find what this Regex actually means and how can I fix the issue with empty query strings?

var getCleanHash = function(){
return (/^[a-z\d\-_&\=]*$/.test(location.hash.substring(1))) ? location.hash.substring(1) : "";
}
I think you should use .substring(1) instead of .substr(1)
[a-z\d-_&=]* means you are testing:
for any hash even empty ones on the entire length(from start ^ to end $)
a to z and digits plus the following characters(-_&=)

How to regex test a string for a pattern while excluding certain characters?

I'm getting nowhere with this...
I need to test a string if it contains %2 and at the same time does not contain /. I can't get it to work using regex. Here is what I have:
var re = new RegExp(/.([^\/]|(%2))*/g);
var s = "somePotentially%2encodedStringwhichMayContain/slashes";
console.log(re.test(s)) // true
Question:
How can I write a regex that checks a string if it contains %2 while not containing any / slashes?

While the link referred to by Sebastian S. is correct, there's an easier way to do this as you only need to check if a single character is not in the string.
/^[^\/]*%2[^\/]*$/
EDIT: Too late... Oh well :P

Try the following:
^(?!.*/).*%2

either use inverse matching as shown here: Regular expression to match a line that doesn't contain a word?
or use indexOf(char) in an if statement. indexOf returns the position of a string or char in a string. If not found, it will return -1:
var s = "test/";
if(s.indexOf("/")!=-1){
//contains "/"
}else {
//doesn't contain "/"
}

Extracting numbers from a string using regular expressions

I am clueless about regular expressions, but I know that they're the right tool for what I'm trying to do here: I'm trying to extract a numerical value from a string like this one:
approval=not requested^assignment_group=12345678901234567890123456789012^category=Test^contact_type=phone^
Ideally, I'd extract the following from it: 12345678901234567890123456789012 None of the regexes I've tried have worked. How can I get the value I want from this string?

This will get all the numbers:
var myValue = /\d+/.exec(myString)

mystr.match(/assignment_group=([^\^]+)/)[1]; //=> "12345678901234567890123456789012"
This will find everything from the end of "assignment_group=" up to the next caret ^ symbol.

Try something like this:
/\^assignment_group=(\d*)\^/
This will get the number for assignment_group.
var str = 'approval=not requested^assignment_group=12345678901234567890123456789012^category=Test^contact_type=phone^',
regex = /\^assignment_group=(\d*)\^/,
matches = str.match(regex),
id = matches !== null ? matches[1] : '';
console.log(id);

If there is no chance of there being numbers anywhere but when you need them, you could just do:
\d+
the \d matches digits, and the + says "match any number of whatever this follows"

remove all but a specific portion of a string in javascript

I am writing a little app for Sharepoint. I am trying to extract some text from the middle of a field that is returned:
var ows_MetaInfo="1;#Subject:SW|NameOfADocument
vti_parservers:SR|23.0.0.6421
ContentTypeID:SW|0x0101001DB26Cf25E4F31488B7333256A77D2CA
vti_cachedtitle:SR|NameOfADocument
vti_title:SR|ATitleOfADocument
_Author:SW:|TheNameOfOurCompany
_Category:SW|
ContentType:SW|Document
vti_author::SR|mrwienerdog
_Comments:SW|This is very much the string I need extracted
vti_categories:VW|
vtiapprovallevel:SR|
vti_modifiedby:SR|mrwienerdog
vti_assignedto:SR|
Keywords:SW|Project Name
ContentType _Comments"
So......All I want returned is "This is very much the string I need extracted"
Do I need a regex and a string replace? How would you write the regex?

Yes, you can use a regular expression for this (this is the sort of thing they are good for). Assuming you always want the string after the pipe (|) on the line starting with "_Comments:SW|", here's how you can extract it:
var matchresult = ows_MetaInfo.match(/^_Comments:SW\|(.*)$/m);
var comment = (matchresult==null) ? "" : matchresult[1];
Note that the .match() method of the String object returns an array. The first (index 0) element will be the entire match (here, we the entire match is the whole line, as we anchored it with ^ and $; note that adding the "m" after the regex makes this a multiline regex, allowing us to match the start and end of any line within the multi-line input), and the rest of the array are the submatches that we capture using parenthesis. Above we've captured the part of the line that you want, so that will present in the second item in the array (index 1).
If there is no match ("_Comments:SW|" doesnt appear in ows_MetaInfo), then .match() will return null, which is why we test it before pulling out the comment.
If you need to adjust the regex for other scenarios, have a look at the Regex docs on Mozilla Dev Network: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript/Guide/Regular_Expressions

You can use this code:
var match = ows_MetaInfo.match(/_Comments:SW\|([^\n]+)/);
if (match)
document.writeln(match[1]);

I'm far from competent with RegEx, so here is my RegEx-less solution. See comments for further detail.
var extractedText = ExtractText(ows_MetaInfo);
function ExtractText(arg) {
// Use the pipe delimiter to turn the string into an array
var aryValues = ows_MetaInfo.split("|");
// Find the portion of the array that contains "vti_categories:VW"
for (var i = 0; i < aryValues.length; i++) {
if (aryValues[i].search("vti_categories:VW") != -1)
return aryValues[i].replace("vti_categories:VW", "");
}
return null;
}​
Here's a working fiddle to demonstrate.

Regex in javascript complex

string str contains somewhere within it http://www.example.com/ followed by 2 digits and 7 random characters (upper or lower case). One possibility is http://www.example.com/45kaFkeLd or http://www.example.com/64kAleoFr. So the only certain aspect is that it always starts with 2 digits.
I want to retrieve "64kAleoFr".
var url = str.match([regex here]);

The regex you’re looking for is /[0-9]{2}[a-zA-Z]{7}/.
var string = 'http://www.example.com/64kAleoFr',
match = (string.match(/[0-9]{2}[a-zA-Z]{7}/) || [''])[0];
console.log(match); // '64kAleoFr'
Note that on the second line, I use the good old .match() trick to make sure no TypeError is thrown when no match is found. Once this snippet has executed, match will either be the empty string ('') or the value you were after.

you could use
var url = str.match(/\d{2}.{7}$/)[0];
where:
\d{2} //two digits
.{7} //seven characters
$ //end of the string
if you don't know if it will be at the end you could use
var url = str.match(/\/\d{2}.{7}$/)[0].slice(1); //grab the "/" at the begining and slice it out

what about using split ?
alert("http://www.example.com/64kAleoFr".split("/")[3]);

var url = "http://www.example.com/",
re = new RegExp(url.replace(/\./g,"\\.") + "(\\d{2}[A-Za-z]{7})");
str = "This is a string with a url: http://www.example.com/45kaFkeLd in the middle.";
var code = str.match(re);
if (code != null) {
// we have a match
alert(code[1]); // "45kaFkeLd"
}​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
The url needs to be part of the regex if you want to avoid matching other strings of characters elsewhere in the input. The above assumes that the url should be configurable, so it constructs a regex from the url variable (noting that "." has special meaning in a regex so it needs to be escaped). The bit with the two numbers and seven letter is then in parentheses so it can be captured.
Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/nnnnnn/NzELc/

http://www\\.example\\.com/([0-9]{2}\\w{7}) this is your pattern. You'll get your 2 digits and 7 random characters in group 1.

If you notice your example strings, both strings have few digits and a random string after a slash (/) and if the pattern is fixed then i would rather suggest you to split your string with slash and get the last element of the array which was the result of the split function.
Here is how:
var string = "http://www.example.com/64kAleoFr"
ar = string.split("/");
ar[ar.length - 1];
Hope it helps