How to use regex (in JS) match words and include html tags

Question

Amateur at JavaScript here. I set my self-projects to help myself learn. I usually find the answers on stackoverflow but several days of googling have not enlightened me on the following. I’m trying to match whole words in sentences. I plan to do this to wrap the words in  tags. The regex I’m using is

  (\/?+<?+\w+<?+>?+)

seen in use here http://regex101.com/r/nT2yY4

If this code is run on the string this is a string It returns

this
is
a

string<
/span>

I'd like it to return

this
is
a
string

while the string two words returns

two
words

also I'd like punctuation pulled split off as well so "this is a string." becomes

this
is
a
string
.

Someone is going to link to this question: stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/… — noio
– noio, Commented Mar 31, 2014 at 8:51
What I got from that post was don't use regex with html parsing. Can you offer suggestion of how I should do this in JS? — Thereissoupinmyfly
– Thereissoupinmyfly, Commented Mar 31, 2014 at 10:12

Stephan · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-31 10:49:39Z

1

Try this regex instead:

/([\w<>\/]+|\.)/g

Description

Regular expression visualization

Demo

http://regex101.com/r/rJ4rR8

edited Mar 31, 2014 at 10:49

answered Mar 31, 2014 at 10:41

Stephan

43.2k69 gold badges245 silver badges342 bronze badges

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

1 Comment

Thereissoupinmyfly Over a year ago

Thanks! This gives me a great leg up!

Ian Routledge · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-31 08:59:00Z

1

It looks to me like all you care about is the spaces and not the tags, so can't you just use something like:

/([^\W]+)/g

To split on whitespace.

If I test that on "This is a sentence with some words and also multiple words sometimes" then the result is, I think, what you've asked for.

answered Mar 31, 2014 at 8:59

Ian Routledge

4,0421 gold badge26 silver badges28 bronze badges

1 Comment

Thereissoupinmyfly Over a year ago

I've added clarification to my post regarding punctuation. I want the punctuation split off separate to the words. Sorry. I should have mentioned this.

Gaurang Tandon · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-31 09:10:15Z

1

If you want this is a string to be split at white space, use:

"this is a <span>string</span>".split(" ");

which gives you:

[ 'this', 'is', 'a', '<span>string</span>' ]

answered Mar 31, 2014 at 9:10

Gaurang Tandon

6,88911 gold badges52 silver badges96 bronze badges

1 Comment

Thereissoupinmyfly Over a year ago

Sorry. I should have put some punctuation in to demonstrate the problem with str.split(" "). "this is a string.".split(" "); I would want the "." to be split off as well.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How to use regex (in JS) match words and include html tags

3 Answers 3

Description

Demo

1 Comment

1 Comment

1 Comment

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

Description

Demo

1 Comment

1 Comment

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related