JavaScript Match Using regexp

Question

I'm trying to extract some data from a large string and I was wondering if it is possible to use regexp. Currently, I'm using javascript. For example:

This is some [example] text for my javascript [regexp] [lack] of knowledge.

With this string, I would like to generate a JSON array with the texts that are between the square brackets.

example, regexp, lack

I hope someone can help me do this in a simple way so I can understand how it works. Thank you in advance for your help. Daniel!

Have you even tried to solve it by yourself? It's a trivial regex task. — zerkms
– zerkms, Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 2:50
"so i can understand how it works" --- regular expressions (and mostly everything in programming) requires reading, not just mimicing other people code. Otherwise you will be in stuck as soon as you see something that slightly different from what you "know" (actually it barely can be called "knowledge") — zerkms
– zerkms, Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 2:51

Leonardo Delfino · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-07 03:00:03Z

4

var str = "This is some [example] text for my javascript [regexp] [lack] of knowledge."
var regex = /\[(.*?)\]/g, result, indices = [];
while ( (result = regex.exec(str)) ) {
    indices.push(result[1]);
}

answered Mar 7, 2014 at 3:00

Leonardo Delfino

1,49810 silver badges20 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

falsetru · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-07 02:54:19Z

2

var text = 'some [example] text for my javascript [regexp] [lack] of knowledge.';
text.match(/\[(.*?)\]/g).map(function(m) {
    return m.substr(1, m.length - 2);
})
// => ["example", "regexp", "lack"]

answered Mar 7, 2014 at 2:54

falsetru

371k69 gold badges769 silver badges659 bronze badges

2 Comments

Pacuraru Daniel Over a year ago

thank you very much falsetru, this works great, can you please tell me what (.*?) means

falsetru Over a year ago

@PacuraruDaniel, . matches any character. * mean that previous pattern (. here) should match 0 or more times. By default .* is greedy (matches as much as possible) Without ?, it matches [example ] text for ... lack]. By appending ?, it works non-greedy fashion.

Brent Echols · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-07 02:53:49Z

1

http://jsfiddle.net/mE7EQ/

I wrote one up real quick, if you have any questions about it, let me know!

var a = 'This is some [example] text for my javascript [regexp] [lack] of knowledge.'
var results = a.match(/\[\w*\]/g);

alert(results[0] + ' ' + results[1] + ' ' + results[2]);

answered Mar 7, 2014 at 2:53

Brent Echols

5902 silver badges9 bronze badges

2 Comments

Pacuraru Daniel Over a year ago

thank you very much for this, it works exactly as i wanted to

Brent Echols Over a year ago

you are welcome! I would recommend reading up on stuff though in the future, esp on how regex work. It is well worth learning, and will serve you well! Teach a man to fish, and he will feed himself, etc.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

JavaScript Match Using regexp

3 Answers 3

Comments

2 Comments

2 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

Comments

2 Comments

2 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related