PHP -> JavaScript RegEx

Question

I'm very stumped here. I'm trying to take some server-side PHP and introduce some JavaScript that does the same thing - giving hints to the user as they type. I have the following, which is attempting to find all lowercase letters, uppercase letters, and numbers 0 or more times; it then deletes those characters, leaving behind a string containing everything else. I then take the length of this and compare it to a variable maxSymbols, which is 5.

I cannot get this to evaluate properly... what am I missing here?

else if(passwordValue.replace(/([a-zA-Z0-9])*/, '').length > maxSymbols){

// Check the maximum number of symbols in the password.
    document.getElementById("passwordHint").innerHTML = "You've used too many symbols, " + maxSymbols + " is the maximum.";
    document.getElementById("passwordHint").style.color = "red";

}

pete · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-01 17:04:50Z

1

You are missing the g modifier for your regular expression. Without the g, you are only replacing the first match.

Try if(passwordValue.replace(/([a-zA-Z0-9])*/g, '').length > maxSymbols).

Hope this helps,

Pete

answered Feb 1, 2012 at 17:04

pete

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3 Comments

patrickn Over a year ago

Both answers work great, thanks guys/gals. This just proves that I have much to learn about regex syntax between languages.

patrickn Over a year ago

Are these flags unique to JavaScript? It's interesting that my PHP regex works as I intended without the 'g' flag.

Joseph Marikle Over a year ago

@patrickn js does have it's own flavor of js. I don't know how close it is to PHP's but they are going to have differences.

Joseph Marikle · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-01 17:04:49Z

0

.replace(/([a-zA-Z0-9])*/, '')

should be

.replace(/[a-zA-Z0-9]/g, '')

and you should be good. :) What your are searching for in the first one is 0 or more of those characters together. What you need is that character class replaces globally (the g).

answered Feb 1, 2012 at 17:04

Joseph Marikle

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2 Comments

patrickn Over a year ago

Interesting, both pages I am using as a reference don't show the /g flag. Unless I'm missing it.

patrickn Over a year ago

learn-javascript-tutorial.com/RegularExpressions.cfm regextester.com/jssyntax.html

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