Regular Expression

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A JavaScript Regex Cheatsheet online.

JavaScript Regular Expression

Method

search() uses an expression to search for a match, and returns the position of the match. Return -1 if regular expression not match:

var str = "test";
var n = str.search(/^(test)+$/i); //n=0
replace

replace: search pattern and replace it

var str = "test";
var res = str.replace(/test/i, "new-test");
test

test() searches a string for a pattern, and returns true or false, depending on the result.

Example code from w3cschool:

var patt = /e/;
patt.test("The best things in life are free!"); //true
exec

exec() searches a string for a specified pattern, and returns the found text. If nothing is founded, return null.

Example code from w3cschool:

/e/.exec("The best things in life are free!"); //e

Modifiers

  • i: Perform case-insensitive matching

  • g: Perform a global match (find all matches rather than stopping after the first match)

  • m: Perform a mutiline matching

Escape

Use \ to escape to following items in regular expression: ^, $, ., *, +, ?, =, !, :, |, \, /, (, ), [, ], {, }

OR

[]: /[abc]/ means a or b or c

Except

[^]: /[^abc]/ anything except a or b or c

Character

.: any single character except next-line and white-space. i.e. [^\n\r]

\w: any ASCII single character. i.e. [a-zA-Z0-9]

\W: any non-ASCII single character. i.e. [^a-zA-Z0-9]

\d: any digital singe character. i.e. [0-9]

\D: any non-digital single character. i.e.e [^0-9]

\s: white-space

\S: non-white-space

Meta Character

\r: Assume you hit Enter key

\t: Tab

\n: change new line

\f: change page

\0: empty character

Repeat

{min, max}: Repeat from min times to max times. Example: /[test]{4,6}/ means 't' or e or s or t should be repeated at least 4 times and as most 6 times.

{min,} or {,max}: Repeat at least min or at most max times. Example: /[test]{4,} means 't' or e or s or t should be repeated at least 4 times. No maximum times.

{n}: Repeat exactly n times.

?: Repeat 0 or 1 times

+: Repeat 1 or more times

*: Repeat 0 or more times

when we use {min,max}, we may fine more than one corresponding pattern in string. By default result string should be as long as possible. If you want result to be shortest case, add ? after {min,max}

Example from: http://www.cnblogs.com/dolphinX/p/3486214.html:

'123456789'.match(/\d{3,5}/g); //["12345", "6789"]
'123456789'.match(/\d{3,5}?/g); //["123", "456", "789"]

Group and Border

^: Mark start point

$: Mark end point

\b: all characters except [a-zA-Z0-9]

Example from http://www.cnblogs.com/dolphinX/p/3486214.html:

(/\w+\b Byron/).test('Hi Byron'); //true
(/\w+\b Byron/).test('Welcome Byron'); //true
(/\w+\b Byron/).test('HiByron'); //false

\B: opposite from above

(): AND. Example: /(abc)+/ means abc or abcabc or more.

|: OR. Example: /a|b/ means a or b

Frequently Used Regular Expressions

Examples below are taken from this post:

  • Non-negative Integer: ^\d+$

  • Positive Integer: ^[0-9]*[1-9][0-9]*$

  • Non-positive Integer: ^((-\d+)|(0+))$

  • Negative Integer: ^-[0-9]*[1-9][0-9]*$

  • Integer: ^-?\d+$

  • Non-negative Float: ^\d+(\.\d+)?$

  • Positive Float: ^(([0-9]+\.[0-9]*[1-9][0-9]*)|([0-9]*[1-9][0-9]*\.[0-9]+)|([0-9]*[1-9][0-9]*))$

  • Non-positive Float: ^((-\d+(\.\d+)?)|(0+(\.0+)?))$

  • Negative Float: ^(-(([0-9]+\.[0-9]*[1-9][0-9]*)|([0-9]*[1-9][0-9]*\.[0-9]+)|([0-9]*[1-9][0-9]*)))$

  • Float: ^(-?\d+)(\.\d+)?$

  • String with all letters: ^[A-Za-z]+$

  • String with all upper case letters: ^[A-Z]+$

  • String with all lower case letters: ^[a-z]+$

  • String with number and letters: ^[A-Za-z0-9]+$

  • String with number, letters and underline: ^\w+$

  • Email Address validation: ^[\w-]+(\.[\w-]+)*@[\w-]+(\.[\w-]+)+$

  • URL Validation: ^[a-zA-z]+:// (\w+(-\w+)*)(\.(\w+(-\w+)*))*(\?\S*)?$

  • HTML Tag: <\s*(\S+)(\s[^>]*)?>(.*?)<\s*\/\1\s*>

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