Javascript regex: test if text contains only characters from a set - javascript

How it is better to check (test) if text contains only characters from set (for example if text contains only punctuation marks)
var regex = /[\.,-\/#!$%\^&\*;:{}=\-_`~()]/g
res = text.replace(regex, '')
if (res) return false
so I made it with replace is it possible to do it with regex.test?

Yes it is. There are two possibilities. One is, that you use anchors to assert that the full string is made up of these:
var regex = /^[\.,-\/#!$%\^&\*;:{}=\-_`~()]+$/;
if(regex.test(text))
Alternatively you can use a negated character class and see whether it matches and then again negate the result
var regex = /[^\.,-\/#!$%\^&\*;:{}=\-_`~()]/;
if(!regex.test(text))
Note that ,-\/ is a range that includes ,-./. This is redundant and may become a source of errors if the character class is ever changed. You might want to simplify your character class to:
[.,\/#!$%^&*;:{}=_`~()-]
(Or the negated version of that, depending on which approach you choose.)

Related

How to write regexp for finding :smile: in javascript?

I want to write a regular expression, in JavaScript, for finding the string starting and ending with :.
For example "hello :smile: :sleeping:" from this string I need to find the strings which are starting and ending with the : characters. I tried the expression below, but it didn't work:
^:.*\:$
My guess is that you not only want to find the string, but also replace it. For that you should look at using a capture in the regexp combined with a replacement function.
const emojiPattern = /:(\w+):/g
function replaceEmojiTags(text) {
return text.replace(emojiPattern, function (tag, emotion) {
// The emotion will be the captured word between your tags,
// so either "sleep" or "sleeping" in your example
//
// In this function you would take that emotion and return
// whatever you want based on the input parameter and the
// whole tag would be replaced
//
// As an example, let's say you had a bunch of GIF images
// for the different emotions:
return '<img src="/img/emoji/' + emotion + '.gif" />';
});
}
With that code you could then run your function on any input string and replace the tags to get the HTML for the actual images in them. As in your example:
replaceEmojiTags('hello :smile: :sleeping:')
// 'hello <img src="/img/emoji/smile.gif" /> <img src="/img/emoji/sleeping.gif" />'
EDIT: To support hyphens within the emotion, as in "big-smile", the pattern needs to be changed since it is only looking for word characters. For this there is probably also a restriction such that the hyphen must join two words so that it shouldn't accept "-big-smile" or "big-smile-". For that you need to change the pattern to:
const emojiPattern = /:(\w+(-\w+)*):/g
That pattern is looking for any word that is then followed by zero or more instances of a hyphen followed by a word. It would match any of the following: "smile", "big-smile", "big-smile-bigger".
The ^ and $ are anchors (start and end respectively). These cause your regex to explicitly match an entire string which starts with : has anything between it and ends with :.
If you want to match characters within a string you can remove the anchors.
Your * indicates zero or more so you'll be matching :: as well. It'll be better to change this to + which means one or more. In fact if you're just looking for text you may want to use a range [a-z0-9] with a case insensitive modifier.
If we put it all together we'll have regex like this /:([a-z0-9]+):/gmi
match a string beginning with : with any alphanumeric character one or more times ending in : with the modifiers g globally, m multi-line and i case insensitive for things like :FacePalm:.
Using it in JavaScript we can end up with:
var mytext = 'Hello :smile: and jolly :wave:';
var matches = mytext.match(/:([a-z0-9]+):/gmi);
// matches = [':smile:', ':wave:'];
You'll have an array with each match found.

regex encapsulation

I've got a question concerning regex.
I was wondering how one could replace an encapsulated text, something like {key:23} to something like <span class="highlightable">23</span, so that the entity will still remain encapsulated, but with something else.
I will do this in JS, but the regex is what is important, I have been searching for a while, probably searching for the wrong terms, I should probably learn more about regex, generally.
In any case, is there someone who knows how to perform this operation with simplicity?
Thanks!
It's important that you find {key:23} in your text first, and then replace it with your wanted syntax, this way you avoid replacing {key:'sometext'} with that syntax which is unwanted.
var str = "some random text {key:23} some random text {key:name}";
var n = str.replace(/\{key:[\d]+\}/gi, function myFunction(x){return x.replace(/\{key:/,'<span>').replace(/\}/, '</span>');});
this way only {key:AnyNumber} gets replaced, and {key:AnyThingOtherThanNumbers} don't get touched.
It seems you are new to regex. You need to learn more about character classes and capturing groups and backreferences.
The regex is somewhat basic in your case if you do not need any nested encapsulated text support.
Let's start:
The beginning is {key: - it will match the substring literally. Note that { can be a special character (denoting start of a limiting quantifier), thus, it is a good idea to escape it: {key:.
([^}]+) - This is a bit more interesting: the round brackets around are a capturing group that let us later back-reference the matched text. The [^}]+ means 1 or more characters (due to +) other than } (as [^}] is a negated character class where ^ means not)
} matches a } literally.
In the replacement string, we'll get the captured text using a backreference $1.
So, the entire regex will look like:
{key:([^}]+)}
See demo on regex101.com
Code snippet:
var re = /{key:([^}]+)}/g;
var str = '{key:23}';
var subst = '<span class="highlightable">$1</span>';
document.getElementById("res").innerHTML = str.replace(re, subst);
.highlightable
{
color: red;
}
<div id="res"/>
If you want to use a different behavior based on the value of key, then you'll need to adjust the regex to either match digits only (with \d+) or letters only (say, with [a-zA-Z] for English), or other shorthand classes, ranges (= character classes), or their combinations.
If your string is in var a, then:
var test = a.replace( /\{key:(\d+)\}/g, "<span class='highlightable'>$1</span>");

Replace words of text area

I have made a javascript function to replace some words with other words in a text area, but it doesn't work. I have made this:
function wordCheck() {
var text = document.getElementById("eC").value;
var newText = text.replace(/hello/g, '<b>hello</b>');
document.getElementById("eC").innerText = newText;
}
When I alert the variable newText, the console says that the variable doesn't exist.
Can anyone help me?
Edit:
Now it replace the words, but it replaces it with <b>hello</b>, but I want to have it bold. Is there a solution?
Update:
In response to your edit, about your wanting to see the word "hello" show up in bold. The short answer to that is: it can't be done. Not in a simple textarea, at least. You're probably looking for something more like an online WYSIWYG editor, or at least a RTE (Richt Text Editor). There are a couple of them out there, like tinyMCE, for example, which is a decent WYSIWYG editor. A list of RTE's and HTML editors can be found here.
First off: As others have already pointed out: a textarea element's contents is available through its value property, not the innerText. You get the contents alright, but you're trying to update it through the wrong property: use value in both cases.
If you want to replace all occurrences of a string/word/substring, you'll have to resort to using a regular expression, using the g modifier. I'd also recommend making the matching case-insensitive, to replace "hello", "Hello" and "HELLO" all the same:
var txtArea = document.querySelector('#eC');
txtArea.value = txtArea.value.replace(/(hello)/gi, '<b>$1</b>');
As you can see: I captured the match, and used it in the replacement string, to preserve the caps the user might have used.
But wait, there's more:
What if, for some reason, the input already contains <b>Hello</b>, or contains a word containing the string "hello" like "The company is called hellonearth?" Enter conditional matches (aka lookaround assertions) and word boundaries:
txtArea.value = txtArea.value.replace(x.value.replace(/(?!>)\b(hello)\b(?!<)/gi, '<b>$1</b>');
fiddle
How it works:
(?!>): Only match the rest if it isn't preceded by a > char (be more specific, if you want to and use (?!<b>). This is called a negative look-ahead
\b: a word boundary, to make sure we're not matching part of a word
(hello): match and capture the string literal, provided (as explained above) it is not preceded by a > and there is a word boundary
(?!<): same as above, only now we don't want to find a matching </b>, so you can replace this with the more specific (?!<\/b>)
/gi: modifiers, or flags, that affect the entire pattern: g for global (meaning this pattern will be applied to the entire string, not just a single match). The i tells the regex engine the pattern is case-insensitive, ie: h matches both the upper and lowercase character.
The replacement string <b>$1</b>: when the replacement string contains $n substrings, where n is a number, they are treated as backreferences. A regex can group matches into various parts, each group has a number, starting with 1, depending on how many groups you have. We're only grouping one part of the pattern, but suppose we wrote:
'foobar hello foobar'.replace(/(hel)(lo)/g, '<b>$1-$2</b>');
The output would be "foobar <b>hel-lo</b> foobar", because we've split the match up into 2 parts, and added a dash in the replacement string.
I think I'll leave the introduction to RegExp at that... even though we've only scratched the surface, I think it's quite clear now just how powerful regex's can be. Put some time and effort into learning more about this fantastic tool, it is well worth it.
If <textarea>, then you need to use .value property.
document.getElementById("eC").value = newText;
And, as mentioned Barmar, replace() replaces only first word. To replace all word, you need to use simple regex. Note that I removed quotes. /g means global replace.
var newText = text.replace(/hello/g, '<b>hello</b>');
But if you want to really bold your text, you need to use content editable div, not text area:
<div id="eC" contenteditable></div>
So then you need to access innerHTML:
function wordCheck() {
var text = document.getElementById("eC").innerHTML;
var newText = text.replace(/hello/g, '<b>hello</b>');
newText = newText.replace(/<b><b>/g,"<b>");//These two lines are there to prevent <b><b>hello</b></b>
newText = newText.replace(/<\/b><\/b>/g,"</b>");
document.getElementById("eC").innerHTML = newText;
}

Matching special characters and letters in regex

I am trying to validate a string, that should contain letters numbers and special characters &-._ only. For that I tried with a regular expression.
var pattern = /[a-zA-Z0-9&_\.-]/
var qry = 'abc&*';
if(qry.match(pattern)) {
alert('valid');
}
else{
alert('invalid');
}
While using the above code, the string abc&* is valid. But my requirement is to show this invalid. ie Whenever a character other than a letter, a number or special characters &-._ comes, the string should evaluate as invalid. How can I do that with a regex?
Add them to the allowed characters, but you'll need to escape some of them, such as -]/\
var pattern = /^[a-zA-Z0-9!##$%^&*()_+\-=\[\]{};':"\\|,.<>\/?]*$/
That way you can remove any individual character you want to disallow.
Also, you want to include the start and end of string placemarkers ^ and $
Update:
As elclanrs understood (and the rest of us didn't, initially), the only special characters needing to be allowed in the pattern are &-._
/^[\w&.\-]+$/
[\w] is the same as [a-zA-Z0-9_]
Though the dash doesn't need escaping when it's at the start or end of the list, I prefer to do it in case other characters are added. Additionally, the + means you need at least one of the listed characters. If zero is ok (ie an empty value), then replace it with a * instead:
/^[\w&.\-]*$/
Well, why not just add them to your existing character class?
var pattern = /[a-zA-Z0-9&._-]/
If you need to check whether a string consists of nothing but those characters you have to anchor the expression as well:
var pattern = /^[a-zA-Z0-9&._-]+$/
The added ^ and $ match the beginning and end of the string respectively.
Testing for letters, numbers or underscore can be done with \w which shortens your expression:
var pattern = /^[\w&.-]+$/
As mentioned in the comment from Nathan, if you're not using the results from .match() (it returns an array with what has been matched), it's better to use RegExp.test() which returns a simple boolean:
if (pattern.test(qry)) {
// qry is non-empty and only contains letters, numbers or special characters.
}
Update 2
In case I have misread the question, the below will check if all three separate conditions are met.
if (/[a-zA-Z]/.test(qry) && /[0-9]/.test(qry) && /[&._-]/.test(qry)) {
// qry contains at least one letter, one number and one special character
}
Try this regex:
/^[\w&.-]+$/
Also you can use test.
if ( pattern.test( qry ) ) {
// valid
}
let pattern = /^(?=.*[0-9])(?=.*[!##$%^&*])(?=.*[a-z])(?=.*[A-Z])[a-zA-Z0-9!##$%^&*]{6,16}$/;
//following will give you the result as true(if the password contains Capital, small letter, number and special character) or false based on the string format
let reee =pattern .test("helLo123#"); //true as it contains all the above
I tried a bunch of these but none of them worked for all of my tests. So I found this:
^(?=.*\d)(?=.*[a-z])(?=.*[A-Z])(?=.*[^a-zA-Z0-9])(?!.*\s).{8,15}$
from this source: https://www.w3resource.com/javascript/form/password-validation.php
Try this RegEx: Matching special charecters which we use in paragraphs and alphabets
Javascript : /^[a-zA-Z]+(([\'\,\.\-_ \/)(:][a-zA-Z_ ])?[a-zA-Z_ .]*)*$/.test(str)
.test(str) returns boolean value if matched true and not matched false
c# : ^[a-zA-Z]+(([\'\,\.\-_ \/)(:][a-zA-Z_ ])?[a-zA-Z_ .]*)*$
Here you can match with special char:
function containsSpecialChars(str) {
const specialChars = /[`!##$%^&*()_+\-=\[\]{};':"\\|,.<>\/?~]/;
return specialChars.test(str);
}
console.log(containsSpecialChars('hello!')); // 👉️ true
console.log(containsSpecialChars('abc')); // 👉️ false
console.log(containsSpecialChars('one two')); // 👉️ false

How to make this simple regexp?

I need to make a string starts and ends with alphanumeric range between 5 to 20 characters and it could have a space or none between characters. /^[a-z\s?A-Z0-9]{5,20}$/ but this is not working.
EDIT
test test -should pass
testtest -should pass
test test test -should not pass
You can't do this with traditional regex without writing a ridiculously long expression, so you need to use a look-ahead:
/^(?=(\w| ){15,20}$)\w+ ?\w+$/
This says, make sure there are between 15 and 20 characters in the match, then match /\w+ \w+/
Note I used \w for simplification. It is the same as your character class above except it also accepts underscores. If you don't want to match them you have to do:
/^(?=[a-zA-Z0-9 ]{15,20}$)[a-zA-Z0-9]+ ?[a-zA-Z0-9]+$/
You can't put a ? inside of [...]. [...] is used to specify a set of characters precisely, you can't maybe (?) have a character inside a set of characters. The occurrence of any specific characters is already optional, the ? is meaningless.
If you allow any number of spaces inside your match, just remove the question mark. If you want to allow a single space but no more, then regular expressions alone can't do that for you, you'd need something like
if (myString.match(/^[a-z\sA-Z0-9]{5,20}$/ && myString.match(/\s/g).length <= 1)
You couldn't do this with a single traditional regex without it being dozens of lines long; regexes are meant for matching more simpler patterns than this.
If you only want to use regexes, you could use two instead of one. The first matches the general pattern, the second ensures that only one non-space characters is found.
if (myString.match(/^[a-z\sA-Z0-9]{5,20}$/ && myString.match(/^[^\s]*\s?[^\s]*$/))) {
Example Usage
inputs = ["test test", "testtest", "test test test"];
for (index in inputs) {
var myString = inputs[index];
if (myString.match(/^[a-z\sA-Z0-9]{5,20}$/ && myString.match(/^[^\s]*\s?[^\s]*$/))) {
console.log(myString + " matches.")
} else {
console.log(myString + " does not match.")
}
}
This produces the output specified in your question.
Meh , So here's the ridiculously long traditional regex for the same
(?i)[a-z0-9]+( [a-z0-9]+)?{5,12}
js vesrion (w/o the nested quantifier)
/^([a-z0-9]( [a-z0-9])?){5,12}$/i

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