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+ Sign removal javascript

Hi I dont know why + sign is removed and how to eliminate it's removing.
Sample code is presented:
var customer_number = $('cust_num');
var l_sParams = 'number='+customer_number.value;
alert(l_sParams);
var l_sURL = '/caller/send_sms';
new Ajax.Request(l_sURL, {parameters: l_sParams, method: 'POST',
onComplete:function(a_oRequest){
}.bind(this)
});
the alert displays ex: +1907727500
and if I print in Python it is printed without + sign like this ex:
_to_customer = self.request.post['number']
result: 1907727500 (without + )
Thank you

+ in a query parameter is the escape code for a space. You receive ' 1907727500', with the space.
Use %2B instead, or better still, have JavaScript quote your values properly
var l_sParams = 'number=' + encodeURIComponent(customer_number.value);

Strings containing a plus sign (or such special chars) should be urlencoded since it represents space in URLs. Use encodeURI() to do that.

selector concatenation peculiarity

I came across behavior that I cannot explain. I want to get an element (id='address.zipCode)' with simple selector:
$('#' + prefix + 'zipCode')
and it doesn't work. In this case, prefix == 'address\\.'. Chrome console debugging results in:
> prefix
"address\\."
> $('#' + prefix + 'zipCode')
[]
The most interesting part is that:
$('#' + "address\\." + 'zipCode')
[<input id=​"address.zipCode" name=​"address.zipCode" class=​"zipCodeMask" type=​"text" value>​]
Any ideas what's wrong with that?

Working backwards from the behavior of the Chrome REPL (which displays the final value of the string, i.e. sans escaping characters), you actually have two backslashes in your final string. In other words, you have probably assigned prefix like so:
var prefix = "address\\\\.";
What you actually need is only one backslash, which means you should type in two backslashes in the string literal (one for escaping):
var prefix = "address\\.";

Most efficient way to grab XML tag from file with JavaScript and Regex

I'm doing some more advanced automation on iOS devices and simulators for an enterprise application. The automation is written in browserless Javascript. One of the methods works on the device but not on the simulator, so I need to code a workaround. For the curious, it's UIATarget.localTarget().frontMostApp().preferencesValueForKey(key).
What we need to do is read a path to a server (which varies) from a plist file on disk. As a workaround on the simulator, I've used the following lines to locate the plist file containing the preferences:
// Get the alias of the user who's logged in
var result = UIATarget.localTarget().host().performTaskWithPathArgumentsTimeout("/usr/bin/whoami", [], 5).stdout;
// Remove the extra newline at the end of the alias we got
result = result.replace('\n',"");
// Find the location of the plist containing the server info
result = UIATarget.localTarget().host().performTaskWithPathArgumentsTimeout("/usr/bin/find", ["/Users/"+result+"/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator", "-name", "redacted.plist"], 100);
// For some reason we need a delay here
UIATarget.localTarget().delay(.5);
// Results are returned in a single string separated by newline characters, so we can split it into an array
// This array contains all of the folders which have the plist file under the Simulator directory
var plistLocations = result.stdout.split("\n");
...
// For this example, let's just assume we want slot 0 here to save time
var plistBinaryLocation = plistLocations[0];
var plistXMLLocation = plistLocations[i] + ".xml";
result = UIATarget.localTarget().host().performTaskWithPathArgumentsTimeout("/usr/bin/plutil", ["-convert","xml1", plistBinaryLocation,"-o", plistXMLLocation], 100);
From here, I think the best way to get the contents is to cat or grep the file, since we can't read the file directly from disk. However, I'm having trouble getting the syntax down. Here's an edited snippet of the plist file I'm reading:
<key>server_url</key>
<string>http://pathToServer</string>
There are a bunch of key/string pairs in the file, where the server_url key is unique. Ideally I'd do something like a lookback, but because JavaScript doesn't appear to support it, I figured I'd just get the pair from the file and whittle it down a bit later.
I can search for the key with this:
// This line works
var expression = new RegExp(escapeRegExp("<key>server_url</key>"));
if(result.stdout.match(expression))
{
UIALogger.logMessage("FOUND IT!!!");
}
else
{
UIALogger.logMessage("NOPE :(");
}
Where the escapeRegExp method looks like this:
function escapeRegExp(str)
{
var result = str.replace(/([()[{*+.$^\\|?])/g, '\\$1');
UIALogger.logMessage("NEW STRING: " + result);
return result;
}
Also, this line returns a value (but gets the wrong line):
var expression = new RegExp(escapeRegExp("<string>(.*?)</string>"));
However, when you put the two together, it (the Regex syntax) works on the terminal but doesn't work in code:
var expression = new RegExp(escapeRegExp("<key>server_url</key>[\s]*<string>(.*?)</string>"));
What am I missing? I also tried grep and egrep without any luck.

There are two problems affecting you here getting the regex to work in your JavaScript code.
First, you are escaping the whole regex expression string, which means that your capturing (.*?) and your whitespace ignoring [\s]* will also be escaped and won't be evaluated the way you're expecting. You need to escape the XML parts and add in the regex parts without escaping them.
Second, the whitespace ignoring part, [\s]* is falling prey to JavaScript's normal string escaping rules. the "\s" is turning into "s" in the output. You need to escape that backslash with "\s" so that it stays as "\s" in the string that you pass to construct the regular expression.
I've built a working script that I've verified in the UI Automation engine itself. It should extract and print out the expected URL:
var testString = "" +
"<plistExample>\n" +
" <key>dont-find-me</key>\n" +
" <string>bad value</string>\n" +
" <key>server_url</key>\n" +
" <string>http://server_url</string>\n" +
"</plistExample>";
function escapeRegExp(str)
{
var result = str.replace(/([()[{*+.$^\\|?])/g, '\\$1');
UIALogger.logMessage("NEW STRING: " + result);
return result;
}
var strExp = escapeRegExp("<key>server_url</key>") + "[\\s]*" + escapeRegExp("<string>") + "(.*)" + escapeRegExp("</string>");
UIALogger.logMessage("Expression escaping only the xml parts:" + strExp);
var exp = new RegExp(strExp);
var match = testString.match(exp);
UIALogger.logMessage("Match: " + match[1]);
I should point out, though, that the only thing you need to escape in the regex is the forward slashes in the XML closing tags. That means that you don't need your escapeRegExp() function and can write the expression you want like this:
var exp = new RegExp("<key>server_url<\/key>[\\s]*<string>(.*)<\/string>");

Regex for matching multiple forward slashes in URL

I need a regular expression for replacing multiple forward slashes in a URL with a single forward slash, excluding the ones following the colon
e.g. http://link.com//whatever/// would become http://link.com/whatever/

I think this should work: /[^:](\/+)/ or /[^:](\/\/+)/ if you want only multiples.
It wont match leading // but it looks like you're not looking for that.
To replace:
"http://test//a/b//d".replace(/([^:]\/)\/+/g, "$1") // --> http://test/a/b/d
Working Demo

As you already accepted an answer. To show some more extend of matching and controlling the matches, this might help you in the future:
var url = 'http://link.com//whatever///';
var set = url.match(/([^:]\/{2,3})/g); // Match (NOT ":") followed by (2 OR 3 "/")
for (var str in set) {
// Modify the data you have
var replace_with = set[str].substr(0, 1) + '/';
// Replace the match
url = url.replace(set[str], replace_with);
}
console.log(url);
Will output:
http://link.com/whatever/
Doublets won't matter in your situation. If you have this string:
var url = 'http://link.com//om/om/om/om/om///';
Your set array will contain multiple m//. A bit redundant, as the loop will see that variable a few times. The nice thing is that String.replace() replaces nothing if it finds nothing, so no harm done.
What you could do is strip out the duplicates from set first, but that would almost require the same amount of resources as just letting the for-loop go over them.
Good luck!

result = subject.replace(/(?<!http:)\/*\//g, "/");
or (for http, https, ftp and ftps)
result = subject.replace(/(?<!(?:ht|f)tps?:)\/*\//g, "/");

The original accepted answer does a sufficient job at replacing, but not for matching. And the currently accepted answer matches the character before duplicate slashes, also not good for matching.
Using a negative lookbehind to exclude the protocol from the match (?<!:), and a curly bracket quantifier to match 2 to infinite slashes \/{2,} does the job to both match and replace.
(?<!:)\/{2,}
let str = 'https://test.example.com:8080//this/is//an/exmaple///';
document.write('Original: ' + str + '<br><br>');
document.write('Matches: ' + str.match(/(?<!:)\/{2,}/g) + '<br><br>');
document.write('Replaced: ' + str.replace(/(?<!:)\/{2,}/g, '/'));

JSLint - Bad Escaping for a Regex with variables

I've seen some posts about JSLint "bad escapement" warnings, but I just wanted to see if I'm doing this Regex correctly. (Note - I'm dabbler programmer).
I have a function (below) that attempts to parse out a variable from it's name in a long message. The regex is working well, but should I change something in response to the JSLint warning?
A very simplified version of msg could look like this essentially:
VariableName1 = Value1
VariableName2 = Value2
VariableName3 = Value3
The actual msg has different unstructured data above and below. I had to use a strange Regex since even though a more simple one worked on all the testing websites, it didn't work within the server application we are using, so this is the only way I could get it to work. The regular expression incorporates a variable.
Here is the parsing function I'm using:
function parseValue(msg, strValueName) {
var myRegexp = new RegExp(strValueName + ' = ([A-Z3][a-zA-Z\. 3]+)[\\n\\r]+', 'gm');
log('parseValue', 'myRegexp = ' + myRegexp.toString());
var match = myRegexp.exec(msg);
log('parseValue', 'returning match = ' + match[1] );
return match[1];
}
There is probably something much simpler that a 'real' programmer can come up with pretty easily. Any help would be appreciated.
THanks.

The problem that JSLint didn't like was the '.' character in the character class as pointed out by 'Explosion Pills'.
When I removed the '.' all was good.
Thanks.