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Replace regex match in JavaScript

For a given URL,
/disconnect/<backend>/foo/<association_id>/
I'd like to get
/disconnect/:backend/foo/:association_id/
There could be any number of <pattern>s in a path.

Below is a regex to use with replace method
var str = '/disconnect/<backend>/foo/<association_id>/',
reg = /<([^>]+)>/g;
console.log(str.replace(reg, ":$1"));
DEMO

What about this way? Live Demo http://jsfiddle.net/d4N9s/
var mystring = "/disconnect/<backend>/foo/<association_id>/"
var middle = mystring.replace(/>/g , "")
console.log(middle.replace(/</g , ":"));
Cleaner way:
var mapO = {
'>':"",
'<':":",
};
str = mystring.replace(/<|>/gi, function(matched){
return mapO[matched];
});
console.log(str);

/<(.*?)>/g
That will match all instances of a string between < and >. You can use some simple JavaScript to replace each instance pretty easily.
http://regexr.com/3ggen

jQuery Regex from String

I have the following Regex that comes from a data Attribute on an HTML Element:
/^$|^[0-9]{2}.[0-9]{4}$/g
When I (manually) do:
/^$|^[0-9]{2}.[0-9]{4}$/g.test('01.2012');
It works and returns true.
When I put the Regex in a Variable like so:
var inputRegex = $(this).attr('data-validation');
And do:
inputRegex.test(input);
I get:
inputRegex.test is not a function.
I know that this is because inputRegex is a String and String does not have a test function, but when I create a RegExp object (new RegExp($(this).attr('data-validation')) it breaks my Regular Expression by escaping:
/\/^$|^[0-9]{2}.[0-9]{4}$\/g/
How can I use the data-attribute value as a Regular Expression? Please note that I cannot do: var regex = new RegExp(string, 'g'); because the Regular Expression(s) come predefined from the attribute.

var pattern = '\d+';
var regExp = new RegExp(pattern, 'g');
'1234dasf13241234'.match(regExp)
is it what you need?
var pattern = $(this).attr('data-validation');;
var regExp = new RegExp(pattern, 'g');
regExp.test(input);
in your case

your problem is that you need to retrieve the regex pattern from a attribute of an element, but it is returning string, and you want the string value to be like inline on your javascript code, like declaring plainly a regex. If this is really what you want to achieve, the closest solution is to use eval function, see updated code below:
var stringreg = "var inputRegex =" + $("#test").attr('data-validation') + ";"
eval(stringreg);
inputRegex.test(input);

This could help
var validation = "/^$|^[0-9]{2}.[0-9]{4}$/g"; //$(this).attr('data-validation')
var startIndex = validation.indexOf('/')+1
var lastIndex = validation.lastIndexOf('/');
var pattern = validation.substring(startIndex,lastIndex);
var options = validation.substring(lastIndex+1);
var regExp = new RegExp(pattern, options);
regExp.test('01.2012');
// true

Replace multiple occurences of a comment with javascript

I want to replace multiple occurences of comment and try like below
JsFiddle
Code:
var str = '<!--#test--><!--#test1-->'
str = str.replace('<!--/g', '').replace('-->/g', '');
alert(str)

Your problem is that you're trying to use a string instead of a regular expression. For example, this works.
var str = '<!--#test-->'
str = str.replace(/<!--/g, '').replace(/-->/g, '');
alert(str)

Plain regex commands need to be inside //.
Also, use the
Disjunction; Alternative | (pipe character)
str = str.replace(/<!--|-->/g, ''); // #test#test1

how to use regex with variables instead of string?

Asked a few times, but I can't get it to work.
I'm doing a lot of these all over a script replacing various class names.
label.className.replace(/(?:^|\s)ui-icon-checkbox-on(?!\S)/g , ' ui-icon-globe');
and wanted to replace my replace call with a generic function which is being passed a string like ui-icon-checkbox-on and returns a regex object to handle my replace.
However, this is not working = it's not replacing anything:
var foo = function (className) {
return new RegExp("(?:^|\s)" + className + "(?!\S)", "g");
};
label.className = label.className.replace(foo("ui-icon-checkbox-on"), ' ui-icon-globe');
And I'm at a loss trying to understand why.
Question:
How to correctly create a regex object, and use it to replace a string with another string?
Thanks!
PS: and no, I don't want to use jQuery to do it :-)

You need to escape the escaped RegExp sequences:
var foo2 = function (className) {
return new RegExp("(?:^|\\s)" + className + "(?!\\S)", "g");
//----------------------^^^---------------------^^^
};
Your original function would return:
foo("ASD")
// returns:
/(?:^|s)ASD(?!S)/g
but we're after this:
foo2("ASD")
// returns:
/(?:^|\s)ASD(?!\S)/g

Simple:
var rx = /[W].*/;
var text = "Hello World"
text.replace( rx, "$1" );

Use dynamic (variable) string as regex pattern in JavaScript

I want to add a (variable) tag to values with regex, the pattern works fine with PHP but I have troubles implementing it into JavaScript.
The pattern is (value is the variable):
/(?!(?:[^<]+>|[^>]+<\/a>))\b(value)\b/is
I escaped the backslashes:
var str = $("#div").html();
var regex = "/(?!(?:[^<]+>|[^>]+<\\/a>))\\b(" + value + ")\\b/is";
$("#div").html(str.replace(regex, "" + value + ""));
But this seem not to be right, I logged the pattern and its exactly what it should be.
Any ideas?

To create the regex from a string, you have to use JavaScript's RegExp object.
If you also want to match/replace more than one time, then you must add the g (global match) flag. Here's an example:
var stringToGoIntoTheRegex = "abc";
var regex = new RegExp("#" + stringToGoIntoTheRegex + "#", "g");
// at this point, the line above is the same as: var regex = /#abc#/g;
var input = "Hello this is #abc# some #abc# stuff.";
var output = input.replace(regex, "!!");
alert(output); // Hello this is !! some !! stuff.
JSFiddle demo here.
In the general case, escape the string before using as regex:
Not every string is a valid regex, though: there are some speciall characters, like ( or [. To work around this issue, simply escape the string before turning it into a regex. A utility function for that goes in the sample below:
function escapeRegExp(stringToGoIntoTheRegex) {
return stringToGoIntoTheRegex.replace(/[-\/\\^$*+?.()|[\]{}]/g, '\\$&');
}
var stringToGoIntoTheRegex = escapeRegExp("abc"); // this is the only change from above
var regex = new RegExp("#" + stringToGoIntoTheRegex + "#", "g");
// at this point, the line above is the same as: var regex = /#abc#/g;
var input = "Hello this is #abc# some #abc# stuff.";
var output = input.replace(regex, "!!");
alert(output); // Hello this is !! some !! stuff.
JSFiddle demo here.
Note: the regex in the question uses the s modifier, which didn't exist at the time of the question, but does exist -- a s (dotall) flag/modifier in JavaScript -- today.

If you are trying to use a variable value in the expression, you must use the RegExp "constructor".
var regex = "(?!(?:[^<]+>|[^>]+<\/a>))\b(" + value + ")\b";
new RegExp(regex, "is")

I found I had to double slash the \b to get it working. For example to remove "1x" words from a string using a variable, I needed to use:
str = "1x";
var regex = new RegExp("\\b"+str+"\\b","g"); // same as inv.replace(/\b1x\b/g, "")
inv=inv.replace(regex, "");

You don't need the " to define a regular expression so just:
var regex = /(?!(?:[^<]+>|[^>]+<\/a>))\b(value)\b/is; // this is valid syntax
If value is a variable and you want a dynamic regular expression then you can't use this notation; use the alternative notation.
String.replace also accepts strings as input, so you can do "fox".replace("fox", "bear");
Alternative:
var regex = new RegExp("/(?!(?:[^<]+>|[^>]+<\/a>))\b(value)\b/", "is");
var regex = new RegExp("/(?!(?:[^<]+>|[^>]+<\/a>))\b(" + value + ")\b/", "is");
var regex = new RegExp("/(?!(?:[^<]+>|[^>]+<\/a>))\b(.*?)\b/", "is");
Keep in mind that if value contains regular expressions characters like (, [ and ? you will need to escape them.

I found this thread useful - so I thought I would add the answer to my own problem.
I wanted to edit a database configuration file (datastax cassandra) from a node application in javascript and for one of the settings in the file I needed to match on a string and then replace the line following it.
This was my solution.
dse_cassandra_yaml='/etc/dse/cassandra/cassandra.yaml'
// a) find the searchString and grab all text on the following line to it
// b) replace all next line text with a newString supplied to function
// note - leaves searchString text untouched
function replaceStringNextLine(file, searchString, newString) {
fs.readFile(file, 'utf-8', function(err, data){
if (err) throw err;
// need to use double escape '\\' when putting regex in strings !
var re = "\\s+(\\-\\s(.*)?)(?:\\s|$)";
var myRegExp = new RegExp(searchString + re, "g");
var match = myRegExp.exec(data);
var replaceThis = match[1];
var writeString = data.replace(replaceThis, newString);
fs.writeFile(file, writeString, 'utf-8', function (err) {
if (err) throw err;
console.log(file + ' updated');
});
});
}
searchString = "data_file_directories:"
newString = "- /mnt/cassandra/data"
replaceStringNextLine(dse_cassandra_yaml, searchString, newString );
After running, it will change the existing data directory setting to the new one:
config file before:
data_file_directories:
- /var/lib/cassandra/data
config file after:
data_file_directories:
- /mnt/cassandra/data

Much easier way: use template literals.
var variable = 'foo'
var expression = `.*${variable}.*`
var re = new RegExp(expression, 'g')
re.test('fdjklsffoodjkslfd') // true
re.test('fdjklsfdjkslfd') // false

Using string variable(s) content as part of a more complex composed regex expression (es6|ts)
This example will replace all urls using my-domain.com to my-other-domain (both are variables).
You can do dynamic regexs by combining string values and other regex expressions within a raw string template. Using String.raw will prevent javascript from escaping any character within your string values.
// Strings with some data
const domainStr = 'my-domain.com'
const newDomain = 'my-other-domain.com'
// Make sure your string is regex friendly
// This will replace dots for '\'.
const regexUrl = /\./gm;
const substr = `\\\.`;
const domain = domainStr.replace(regexUrl, substr);
// domain is a regex friendly string: 'my-domain\.com'
console.log('Regex expresion for domain', domain)
// HERE!!! You can 'assemble a complex regex using string pieces.
const re = new RegExp( String.raw `([\'|\"]https:\/\/)(${domain})(\S+[\'|\"])`, 'gm');
// now I'll use the regex expression groups to replace the domain
const domainSubst = `$1${newDomain}$3`;
// const page contains all the html text
const result = page.replace(re, domainSubst);
note: Don't forget to use regex101.com to create, test and export REGEX code.

var string = "Hi welcome to stack overflow"
var toSearch = "stack"
//case insensitive search
var result = string.search(new RegExp(toSearch, "i")) > 0 ? 'Matched' : 'notMatched'
https://jsfiddle.net/9f0mb6Lz/
Hope this helps