Regex - match multiple unordered words in a string

Question

I have a list of names and I am looking to filter the list to only return names that contains both the last and first names.

Let's say I am looking for "Joe Doe"

I have the current regex (?:^|\s)Joe|(?:^|\s)Doe

It somewhat works but it is returning all the strings that contains either Joe or Doe. I would like it to match the names that contains both names only, and it could be either "Doe Joe" or "Joe Doe"

is your first name and last name always separated by whitespace? — Rohit Jain, Oct 16 '13 at 19:49

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 16 '13 at 19:52

8

This lookahead based regex should work:

/(?=.*?\bJoe\b)(?=.*?\bDoe\b).*/i

Testing:

/(?=.*?\bJoe\b)(?=.*?\bDoe\b).*/.test('Joe Doe'); // true
/(?=.*?\bJoe\b)(?=.*?\bDoe\b).*/.test('Doe Joe'); // true

answered Oct 16 '13 at 19:52

anubhava

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That will match Joel Adoe – megawac Oct 16 '13 at 19:56
I need it to match Names that start with as well...therefore 'Joe Do' should also match 'Joe Doe' – Newton Oct 16 '13 at 19:59
1

@Newton: In that case take out word boundaries `\b` from both sides – anubhava Oct 16 '13 at 20:00
How can I prevent it from finding names that contains the name? i.e. return false when looking for "Doe" in "McDoe"? – Newton Oct 21 '13 at 17:59

Regex - match multiple unordered words in a string

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