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up vote 0 down vote favorite

I have this JavaScript code:

var textareas = document.getElementsByTagName('textarea');
var content = textareas[0].value;
var reg = new RegExp(/^.*[[]#.+#[]].*$/mgi);
var res = content.match(reg); // always null

The content var contains a long multiline string that contains patterns like [#some text goes here#]. I tested the regex with some online testing tools and it works against the string. Using the regex in JavaScript fails though - any idea why?

Thanks!

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You're using ^ and $ along with the m modifier. So does this mean that you only want to match when the [#some text goes here#] is the only thing on the line? –  squint Feb 7 '12 at 15:47
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3 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

How about this?

var content = 'foo\nhead [#some text goes here#] tail\nbar';
var reg = new RegExp(/\[#.+#\]/mgi);
var res = content.match(reg);

On execution, res contains the string '[#some text goes here#]'.

Note that I have escaped [ and ]. If they are not escaped, anything enclosed within them forms a character class.

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Nope, I tried ... –  EOB Feb 7 '12 at 15:41
    
What did you try? This seems to work for me. –  Ben Alpert Feb 7 '12 at 15:43
    
@EOB: If it doesn't work for you, then you havent' properly described the result you want. –  squint Feb 7 '12 at 15:44
    
Aha, now it works! Dont know what the problem was ... I had the same just with [[] instead of \[ ... propably some tiny mistake somewhere, anyway, it works now, thanks! –  EOB Feb 7 '12 at 15:46
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up vote 1 down vote

You used [[] to escape [, which is fine, but you can't use []] to escape ] because it the first ] ends the character class in the regex. This works fine:

/^.*\[#.+#\].*$/mgi

In the case that you only want the single block and not the entire line, use:

/\[#.+#\]/mgi
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[[] is the same as \[, isnt it? –  EOB Feb 7 '12 at 15:41
    
Sorry, you're right about that. Updated my answer. –  Ben Alpert Feb 7 '12 at 15:43
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up vote 0 down vote

This should capture the text between hashes (e.g., "some text here"):

var reg = /[^\[]*\[#([^\#]+)#\]/gims
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