Retrieve only a portion of a matched string using regex in Javascript

Question

I've got a string like

foo (123) bar

I want to retrieve all numbers surrounded with the delimiters ( and ).

If I use varname.match(/\([0-9]+\)/), my delimiters are included in the response, and I get "(123)" when what I really want is "123".

How can I retrieve only a portion of the matched string without following it up with varname.replace()?

John Millikin · Accepted Answer · 2008-10-01 03:53:11Z

8

Yes, use capturing (non-escaped) parens:

varname.match(/\(([0-9]+)\)/)[1]

answered Oct 1, 2008 at 3:53

John Millikin

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1 Comment

The '[1]' is the part the picks the first substring match. If it was '[0]' instead, it would return the entire match (e.g. '(123)')