Regex for javascript not working

Question

I have this array of array and I want to loop through it and give me every word, but stripped from "@", punctuation and hashtags. However my regular expression is removing some of the words completely from the array and I am not sure why.

  [ [ '@AIMEEE94x',
      '@Arsenal_Geek',
      '@Charlottegshore',
      'shut',
      'it',
      'ha' ],
     [ '"You',
       'learn',
       'so',
       'much',
       '@MesutOzil1088',
       'and',
       '@Alexis_Sanchez"',
       '-',
       '@alexiwobi:' ] ]


     var regex = /\w+/g;
     var listsb = [];
     for ( i = 0 ; i < tweetsA.length; i++) {
         for(j = 0; j < tweetsA[i].length; j++){

             if (regex.test(tweetsA[i][j])== true){
                 listsb = listsb.concat(tweetsA[i][j])
             }                                                                                                 

         }
     }  
  console.log(listsb);

Rahul Nanwani · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-23 21:21:11Z

1

If you want to strip out all the other characters, then just a check against the regex doesn't suffice. You would need to find the exact pattern that matches in the word. This is done using the match function of String in javascript

var str = "@Alexis_Sanchez";
var regex = /\w+/g;
var match = str.match(regex); //match = ['Alexis_Sanchez']
var str2 = "@alexwobi:";
var match2 = str2.match(regex); //match2 = ['alexwobi']

This value of match (if match exists) should be pushed inside the list array.

The \w meta character is equivalent to [A-Za-z0-9_]. So it won't strip underscores for you. Also if you have a non \w character in the middle of the word, the you would get two elements in the match array. Both of them would need to be appended and then pushed in your list.

answered Mar 23, 2016 at 21:21

Rahul Nanwani

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Comments

henrikmerlander · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-23 21:23:33Z

0

Wouldn't it be easier to just use String.match() for this? Like this:

var regex = /\w+/g;
var listsb = [];
for ( i = 0 ; i < tweetsA.length; i++) {
  for(j = 0; j < tweetsA[i].length; j++){
    listb.push(tweetsA[i][j].match(regex)); //Will give you string stripped with regex characters.                                                                                           
  }
}

answered Mar 23, 2016 at 21:23

henrikmerlander

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DrC · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-23 21:53:38Z

0

New answer based on the update in your comment. This version loops through all the matches found and adds them to your list.

 var regex = /\w+/g;
 var listsb = [];
 for ( i = 0 ; i < tweetsA.length; i++) {
     for(j = 0; j < tweetsA[i].length; j++) {
         while((m = regex.exec(tweetsA[i][j])) != null) {
            listsb = listsb.concat(m[0]);
         }
     }
 }

answered Mar 23, 2016 at 21:53

DrC

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