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I am trying to extract express route named parameters with regex.

So, for example:

www.test.com/something/:var/else/:var2

I am trying with this regex:

.*\/?([:]+\w+)+

but I am getting only last matched group.

Does anyone knows how to match both :var and :var2.

user232343
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2 Answers2

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The first problem is that .* is greedy, and will therefore bypass all matches until the final one is found. This means that the first :var is bypassed.

However, as you are searching for a variable number of capture groups (with thanks to @MichaelTang), I recommend using two regexes in sequence. First, use

^(?:.*?\/?\:\w+)+$

to detect which lines contain colon-elements...

Regular expression visualization

Debuggex Demo

...and then search that line repeatedly for, simply

\/:(\w+)

This places the text post-colon into capture group one.

Regular expression visualization

Debuggex Demo

Community
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aliteralmind
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  • Thank you on your answer. But still if I run ``> var res = 'www.test.com/something/:var/else/:var2'.match(/.*?\/?([:]+\w+)+/);`` in node.js, I am getting only one group, not both :/. – user232343 Mar 24 '14 at 01:47
  • It is not clear then, from your question, exactly what your goal is. Are you trying to capture `:var` and also `:var2`? And is the format of every line exactly the same? Meaning always two colon-elements? Never three or one? Some more realistic and more examples input and expected output would be most helpful, if you want better answers. – aliteralmind Mar 24 '14 at 01:53
  • Yes, I need to capture :var and :var2 (and others if exist with pattern like /:something). I will update my question. – user232343 Mar 24 '14 at 01:55
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    I'm not sure if it's possible to have a [variable number of capture groups](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5018487/regular-expression-with-variable-number-of-groups)... Perhaps it might be best to just programmatically build your Regex string with `new Regex(str)` based on the number of `:` chars in your path? – Michael Tang Mar 24 '14 at 02:10
  • Okay, thank you @MichaelTang. I didn't catch that part of his comment-response until you mentioned it. Updated my answer. – aliteralmind Mar 24 '14 at 02:24
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Here is how you can match both of them:

www.test.com/something/:var/else/:var2'.match(/\:(\w+)/g)

[":var", ":var2"]
Rahil Wazir
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uroslates
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