JavaScript regex for string literal?

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Is there a RegExp.escape function in Javascript?

I'm currently using: var keywords = new RegExp(req.params.keywords, 'i');

The catch is, if req.params.keywords == '.*', this will match anything, what I want is for it to match .* literally, as in \.\*\

Is there a more elegant solution than escaping every passed single character with a \?

In the process of showing what you mean, you almost solved your own problem. Just remove that last `backslash (\)` and you are done. — Rohit Jain, Jan 30 '13 at 15:42

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 30 '13 at 15:50

2

If you want to match literally, instead of using the regular expressions included in the string, don't use a regular expression. Use the string indexOf() function to see if a string is contained withing another one.

For case insensitive matching, you convert each string to, say, lower case before the match.

var searchForString = req.params.keywords.toLowerCase();
var searchInString = xxx.toLowerCase();
if (searchInString.indexOf(searchForString) >= 0) {
    ... then it matches ...
}

answered Jan 30 '13 at 15:50

Lee Meador

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this is for querying MongoDB, which requires a `RegExp` for `LIKE` operations – bevacqua Jan 30 '13 at 16:04
Then you have to put in the backslashes on certain characters. – Lee Meador Jan 30 '13 at 16:16

JavaScript regex for string literal?

1 Answers1