Bulk escape in regex

Question

My regex is not so hot so apologies for the very newb question.

I'm using String.replace to change the string "../../libs/bootstrap/less" into just "bootstrap". Currently my regex looks like this:

myString.replace(\.\.\/\.\.\/libs\/bootstrap\/less/g, 'bootstrap);

I figure there has to be a better way to escape that path. Is it possible to specify a whole block of stuff to be escaped like /\"../../foo/bar/baz"/ ?

possible duplicate of [How do you pass a variable to a Regular Expression JavaScript?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/494035/how-do-you-pass-a-variable-to-a-regular-expression-javascript) — Ja͢ck, Oct 18 '12 at 01:49
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3561493/is-there-a-regexp-escape-function-in-javascript — Matt Whipple, Oct 18 '12 at 02:26

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 18 '12 at 02:01

1

As far as I am aware, there is no global/block escape in regex. If you wanted to avoid the escaping in this instance you could alternatively do the following:

myString.replace(/([.]{2}[/]){2}libs[/]bootstrap[/]less/g, "bootstrap");

. and / don't need to be escaped when specified within a character set []

answered Oct 18 '12 at 02:01

cbayram

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I ended up going with this: ([.]{2}\/){2}libs\/bootstrap\/less Thanks! – robdodson Oct 18 '12 at 03:23

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 18 '12 at 01:54

0

To make it easier what to quote in regular expressions you can use the following code:

RegExp.quote = function(str) {
     return str.replace(/([.?*+^$[\]\\(){}|-])/g, "\\$1");
};

Then you apply it like so:

var expr = RegExp.quote('../../libs/bootstrap/less');
mystring.replace(new RegExp(expr, 'g'), 'bootstrap');

answered Oct 18 '12 at 01:54

Ja͢ck

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No need for the excess function, what OP needs is already in the language itself. – SomeKittens Oct 18 '12 at 01:56
@SomeKittens OP is asking for a better way to escape the path, this answer is just more generic. – Ja͢ck Oct 18 '12 at 01:58
@MattWhipple You realize that we've been talking about Java**Script** this whole time right? There's no `Pattern` class. – Ja͢ck Oct 18 '12 at 02:18
@Jack whoops, sorry, should have looked at your code a bit closer – Matt Whipple Oct 18 '12 at 02:21

Bulk escape in regex

2 Answers2