To match a substring inside parentheses excluding any inner parentheses you may use
\(([^()]*)\)
pattern. See the regex demo.
In JavaScript, use it like
var rx = /\(([^()]*)\)/g;
Pattern details
\(
- a (
char
([^()]*)
- Capturing group 1: a negated character class matching any 0 or more chars other than (
and )
\)
- a )
char.
To get the whole match, grab Group 0 value, if you need the text inside parentheses, grab Group 1 value.
Most up-to-date JavaScript code demo (using matchAll
):
const strs = ["I expect five hundred dollars ($500).", "I expect.. :( five hundred dollars ($500)."];
const rx = /\(([^()]*)\)/g;
strs.forEach(x => {
const matches = [...x.matchAll(rx)];
console.log( Array.from(matches, m => m[0]) ); // All full match values
console.log( Array.from(matches, m => m[1]) ); // All Group 1 values
});
Legacy JavaScript code demo (ES5 compliant):
var strs = ["I expect five hundred dollars ($500).", "I expect.. :( five hundred dollars ($500)."];
var rx = /\(([^()]*)\)/g;
for (var i=0;i<strs.length;i++) {
console.log(strs[i]);
// Grab Group 1 values:
var res=[], m;
while(m=rx.exec(strs[i])) {
res.push(m[1]);
}
console.log("Group 1: ", res);
// Grab whole values
console.log("Whole matches: ", strs[i].match(rx));
}