Javascript regular expression matching prior and trailing characters

Question

I have this string in a object:

<FLD>dsfgsdfgdsfg;NEW-7db5-32a8-c907-82cd82206788</FLD><FLD>dsfgsdfgsd;NEW-480e-e87c-75dc-d70cd731c664</FLD><FLD>dfsgsdfgdfsgfd;NEW-0aad-440a-629c-3e8f7eda4632</FLD>

this.model.get('value_long').match(/[<FLD>\w+;](NEW[-|\d|\w]+)[</FLD>]/g)

Returns:

[";NEW-7db5-32a8-c907-82cd82206788<", ";NEW-480e-e87c-75dc-d70cd731c664<", ";NEW-0aad-440a-629c-3e8f7eda4632<"]

What is wrong with my regular expression that it is picking up the preceding ; and trailing <

here is a link to the regex http://regexr.com?30k3m

Updated:

this is what I would like returned:

["NEW-7db5-32a8-c907-82cd82206788", "NEW-480e-e87c-75dc-d70cd731c664", "NEW-0aad-440a-629c-3e8f7eda4632"]

here is a JSfiddle for it

http://jsfiddle.net/mwagner72/HHMLK/

Andrew Clark · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-11 17:56:50Z

2

Square brackets create a character class, which you do not want here, try changing your regex to the following:

<FLD>\w+;(NEW[-\d\w]+)</FLD>

Since it looks like you want to grab the capture group from each match, you can use the following code to construct an array with the capture group in it:

var regex = /<FLD>\w+;(NEW[\-\d\w]+)<\/FLD>/g;
var match = regex.exec(string);
var matches = [];
while (match !== null) {
    matches.push(match[1]);
    match = regex.exec(string);
}

[<FLD>\w+;] would match one of the characters inside of the square brackets, when I think what you actually want to do is match all of those. Also for the other character class, [-|\d|\w], you can remove the | because it is already implied in a character class, | should only be used for alternation inside of a group.

Here is an updated link with the new regex: http://jsfiddle.net/RTkzx/1

edited Apr 11, 2012 at 17:56

answered Apr 11, 2012 at 17:14

Andrew Clark

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3 Comments

James Montagne Over a year ago

And I believe he will want to grab the first capturing group. Seems to be trying to strip the beginning and end stuff off.

theSociableme Over a year ago

I appreciate your response, and I have looked at the link, however your regex is not matching the correct sections of the string.

Andrew Clark Over a year ago

@MarkWagner See my edit, I think it should now do what you want. I also included a JSfiddle link.

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