Matching invisible characters in JavaScript RegEx

Question

I've got some string that contain invisible characters, but they are in somewhat predictable places. Typically the surround the piece of text I want to extract, and then after the 2nd occurrence I want to keep the rest of the text.

I can't seem to figure out how to both key off of the invisible characters, and exclude them from my result. To match invisibles I've been using this regex: /\xA0\x00-\x09\x0B\x0C\x0E-\x1F\x7F/ which does seem to work.

Here's an example: [invisibles]Keep as match 1[invisibles]Keep as match 2

Here's what I've been using so far without success:

/([\xA0\x00-\x09\x0B\x0C\x0E-\x1F\x7F]+)(.+)([\xA0\x00-\x09\x0B\x0C\x0E-\x1F\x7F]+)/(.+)

I've got the capture groups in there, but it's bee a while since I've had to use regex's in this way, so I know I'm missing something important. I was hoping to just make the invisible matches non-capturing groups, but it seems that JavaScript does not support this.

A non-capturing group would be (?:something) rather than (something). Could you show also a little bit of the JS that uses that regex? Why is the closing / not quite at the end of your regex? (See also MDN's regex page.) — nnnnnn
– nnnnnn, Commented Apr 25, 2013 at 3:01
"invisible characters" you mean like Sue from the fantastic four? No? How about defining that a little more clearly then? — Danack
– Danack, Commented Apr 25, 2013 at 3:02
How are you actually getting the data from the match? If you are reading only the two capture groups, then it should be fine. What is that second (.+) outside of your second regex though? — loganfsmyth
– loganfsmyth, Commented Apr 25, 2013 at 3:04
In your case, there's no reason to use a non-capturing group--regex characters are non-capturing by default. Just capture the ones you want. — 7stud
– 7stud, Commented Apr 25, 2013 at 3:07
@7stud No - invisible characters aren't a standard term. Does the questioner mean whitespace? If so he can just use '\s' — Danack
– Danack, Commented Apr 25, 2013 at 3:35

loganfsmyth · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-25 03:10:01Z

1

Something like this seems like what you want. The second regex you have pretty much works, but the / is in totally the wrong place. Perhaps you weren't properly reading out the group data.

var s = "\x0EKeep as match 1\x0EKeep as match 2";
var r = /[\xA0\x00-\x09\x0B\x0C\x0E-\x1F\x7F]+(.+)[\xA0\x00-\x09\x0B\x0C\x0E-\x1F\x7F]+(.+)/;

var match = s.match(r);

var part1 = match[1];
var part2 = match[2];

answered Apr 25, 2013 at 3:10

loganfsmyth

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5 Comments

Muhammad Umer Over a year ago

just to be clear. There are invisible characters between all characters right. So in string "abc" there are 3 invisible characters. like this I=specialcharacter. IaIbIc

loganfsmyth Over a year ago

@MuhammadUmer I'm not sure I 100% follow, are you asking if every string automatically has invisible characters between all the visible characters? If so, the answer is no, that is not the case. If you have a specific question, please create a new one.

loganfsmyth Over a year ago

@MuhammadUmer You can write a regex that can match the space between characters, but that does not mean there is an invisible character between each one.

Muhammad Umer Over a year ago

wow that is confusing but thanks...so if get a match between ab what exactly i am matching with.

loganfsmyth Over a year ago

@MuhammadUmer Please open a new question.

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