How to use Regex to parse variable length string in Google Application Scripts

Question

Trying to extract the alphanumeric parts of a variable length string with a known pattern using Regex in Google Application Scripts. Pattern repeats n times as follows (XXXs are groups of Alphanumeric characters): XX-XXX-X-XX-XX-........ for example ABC-AB or ABCD-AB-ABC-AA I want to extract the alphanumeric parts into an Array if possible like e[0] = ABCD e[1] = AB e[2] = ABC .....

I tried repeated \w+ but that requires knowing the possible lengths of string. See below. Is there a way for Regex to process varying size strings? See my example code below:

var data1 = 'ABC-AB';
var data2 = 'ABCD-AB-ABCD-AA';

var regex1 = new RegExp(/(\w+)-(\w+)/); 
var regex2 = new RegExp(/(\w+)/);

e = regex1.exec(data1); //stores ABC and AB as separate array elements.

This is fine but won't work on a string with larger size

e = regex2.exec(data2); //stores ABCD only as a single array element "ABCD"

Match the repeated string and split on -

The fourth bird
– The fourth bird

2020-10-19 20:08:51 +00:00
Commented Oct 19, 2020 at 20:08 — The fourth bird
– The fourth bird, Commented Oct 19, 2020 at 20:08

Bohemian · Accepted Answer · 2020-10-19 20:12:01Z

1

To match any length of kebab case letters:

var regex1 = new RegExp(/\w+(-\w+)*/)

For each of the matches found, split the result on dashes to get your array.

var array = found.split("-")

edited Oct 19, 2020 at 20:12

answered Oct 19, 2020 at 20:05

Bohemian♦

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4 Comments

off_script Over a year ago

I tried your Regex1 suggestion: var regex1 = new RegExp(/\w+(-\w+)*/) on 'ABC-AB-ABCD-AA' and it resulted in "-AA" getting grouped in my array. I am not clear on how you intended the code to be used. Please clarify.

Bohemian Over a year ago

As per answer, regex1 will find all kebab case sequences, for example it will match ABC-AB-ABCD-AA from foo ABC-AB-ABCD-AA bar. Having extracted that match (I’m not familiar with Google apps script, so I don’t know the syntax, but I’m sure it can be done), you then split the extracted match on hyphen, which will result in the array [ABC, AB, ABCD, AA]

off_script Over a year ago

Thanks, but my question is not about extracting the kebab sequence from a random sequence. I already have a kebab sequence to being with. I am trying to find a Regex expression that will extract the Alphanumeric parts of the Kebab sequence into an array. So from ABC-AB-ABCD-AA-(varying length) into [ABC, AB, ABCD, AA, (varying length)]

off_script Over a year ago

But you introduced me to .split method, which is an easier solution. So all I have to do is e = data2.split('-'); and I get the array I want. It is a curious question though if Regex can be applied to a string of variable lengths.

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