Regex remove alphanumeric but keep parenthesis and spaces in Javascript

Question

I have a string that looks like this:

var string = 'Size? [Small] Color? [Blue]'

I want to remove all non alphanumeric but keep spaces and []

The end string would be

'Size [Small] Color [Blue]'

I tried the \W like this:

string = string.replace(/\W/g, '')

But that gets rid of the spaces and the []

I'm not sure how to exclude and include items in a regular expression?

You may use: string = string.replace(/[^a-zA-Z0-9 \[\]]+/g, '') — anubhava
– anubhava, Commented May 10, 2018 at 20:05

anubhava · Accepted Answer · 2018-05-10 20:06:55Z

3

\W matches all non-word characters.

To match all non alpha-numerals except space, [ and ] you should use a negated character class:

/[^a-zA-Z0-9 \[\]]/

RegEx Demo

Code:

let string = 'Size? [Small] Color? [Blue]';

string = string.replace(/[^a-zA-Z0-9 \[\]]+/g, '') 

console.log( string );
//=> Size [Small] Color [Blue]

answered May 10, 2018 at 20:06

anubhava

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Explosion Pills · Accepted Answer · 2018-05-10 20:06:04Z

2

I would whitelist rather than blacklist the characters you want:

string.replace(/[^\w[\] ]/g, '');

answered May 10, 2018 at 20:06

Explosion Pills

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2 Comments

anubhava Over a year ago

This will leave underscores if present in input.

Explosion Pills Over a year ago

@anubhava good point; if that's undesired then using the a-z\d will work with i, or [^\p{Letter}\p{Number} [\]] if unicode property escapes are available.

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