Get Array of Strings In Between Two Strings with Javascript

Question

This question has been asked a few times before, here's an example. However, the question linked only asks about getting one string out of the result. The text I would like to parse has many different instances of the trailing and leading strings, and thus the code below does not work:

test.match("SomeString(.*)TrailingString");

As shown in this fiddle. I will show you the intended result below:

If I were to have a string composed of the following elements STARTINGTEXTText I wantENDINGTEXT Text I don't want STARTINGTEXTMore text I wantENDINGTEXT Text I don't want

I would like to have a function that I can pass in the arguments STARTINGTEXT and ENDINGTEXT and it would return an array with "Text I want" and "More text I want"

Thanks!

EDIT - This is a Pebble Application so JQuery isn't an option.

This similar thing has been done in Objective-C:

-(NSMutableArray*)stringsBetweenString:(NSString*)start andString:(NSString*)end
{

  NSMutableArray* strings = [NSMutableArray arrayWithCapacity:0];

  NSRange startRange = [self rangeOfString:start];

  for( ;; )
  {

    if (startRange.location != NSNotFound)
    {

      NSRange targetRange;

      targetRange.location = startRange.location + startRange.length;
      targetRange.length = [self length] - targetRange.location;   

      NSRange endRange = [self rangeOfString:end options:0 range:targetRange];

      if (endRange.location != NSNotFound)
      {

        targetRange.length = endRange.location - targetRange.location;
        [strings addObject:[self substringWithRange:targetRange]];

        NSRange restOfString;

        restOfString.location = endRange.location + endRange.length;
        restOfString.length = [self length] - restOfString.location;

        startRange = [self rangeOfString:start options:0 range:restOfString];

      }
      else
      {
        break;
      }

    }
    else
    {
      break;
    }

  }

  return strings;

}

so you want to keep things between opening and closing tags, but not between closing and opening tags? Is there a reason you can't just use an XML parser (which you clearly need here, don't use regex for parsing markup) to throw away all "untagged" content? — Mike 'Pomax' Kamermans
– Mike 'Pomax' Kamermans, Commented May 3, 2016 at 0:03
The example I gave with tags wasn't a very good one. I'll add another to make it clearer. — Alex Wulff
– Alex Wulff, Commented May 3, 2016 at 0:04
You should start by using regex literals instead of string literals for regular expressions. — Bergi
– Bergi, Commented May 3, 2016 at 0:13
@AlexWulff never show "something like" what you're working with. Show what you're working with =) — Mike 'Pomax' Kamermans
– Mike 'Pomax' Kamermans, Commented May 3, 2016 at 0:59

David784 · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-03 00:25:13Z

2

If you would prefer a RegExp solution, you could do something like this:

var test = "STARTINGTEXTText I wantENDINGTEXT Text I don't want STARTINGTEXTMore text I wantENDINGTEXT Text I don't want";
var matches = test.match(/STARTINGTEXT(.*?)ENDINGTEXT/g);

The key to this is the "g" (or global) flag, and the non-greedy repeat operator "*?". See this link for an explanation of the "g" flag and the non-greedy operator.

Here is a modification of your fiddle: link. I changed it so that the alert would show a stringified JSON of the results, so that you could see it matching both strings.

edited May 3, 2016 at 0:25

answered May 3, 2016 at 0:19

David784

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StackSlave · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-03 01:54:56Z

1

This methodology uses very little code:

function getBetweenText(fromString, ignoreStart, ignoreEnd){
  var s =  fromString.split(new RegExp(ignoreStart+'|'+ignoreEnd)), r = [];
  for(var i=1,l=s.length; i<l; i+=2){
    r.push(s[i]);
  }
  return r;
}
console.log(getBetweenText("STARTINGTEXTText I wantENDINGTEXT Text I don't want STARTINGTEXTMore text I wantENDINGTEXT Text I don't want", 'STARTINGTEXT', 'ENDINGTEXT'));

answered May 3, 2016 at 1:54

StackSlave

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1 Comment

Alex Wulff Over a year ago

Thank you - this is also helpful because it gets rid of the starting and ending strings

Max Kroshka · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-02 23:55:49Z

0

You can do this using jQuery. To select all the elements with specific tag you just do something like this: ** UPDATED WITH NON-JQUERY VERSION **

var HTMLelements = document.getElementsByTagName("tag");
var results = [];
for(var i = 0; i < HTMLelements.length; i++){
  results.push(HTMLelements[i].innerHTML);
}

edited May 2, 2016 at 23:55

answered May 2, 2016 at 23:44

Max Kroshka

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6 Comments

Alex Wulff Over a year ago

Sorry - I forgot to mention that this is for a Pebble application and thus I can't use JQuery. My mistake!

Max Kroshka Over a year ago

Updated with plain HTML

Alex Wulff Over a year ago

Is there a way to acomplish this where you can supply a unique ending tag?

Alex Wulff Over a year ago

Where the beginning string and ending string are different.

Max Kroshka Over a year ago

I am not quiet sure what do you mean by that. Do you have an example?

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