Regular Expression for matching content between bracket

Question

I need a RegEx that select something like [something and not support [something] for first one I know this

/\[[\w]+/g

But for not selecting if content between [] I don't know what should I do.

This is an open-ended (no pun intended) question in the sense of how do you define an open bracket which never closes? If you encounter `word]` several words later does it mean the first one should not be matched? — Tim Biegeleisen, Jul 19 '17 at 05:05
Have you tried using a regex playground like this: http://regexr.com/ — Trent, Jul 19 '17 at 05:15

Gershom Maes · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-28T18:27:47.937

Regex can't necessarily solve your problem.

If you're always matching the entire string, you can ensure that the end of the string comes before any occurrence of the "]" character:

var reg = /\[[^\]]+$/;

/*

  How is this regex working?

  - The first two characters, `"\["`, mean to match a literal "["
  - The next 5 characters, `"[^\]]"`, match ANY character except
    the "]" character. The outer "[]" define a character class,
    and when "^" appears as the first character of a character
    class it means to invert the character class, so only accept
    characters which DON'T match. Then the only character which
    cannot be matched is an escaped right-square-bracket: "\]"
  - Add one more character to the previous 5 - `"[^\]]+"` - and
    you will match any number (one or more) of characters which
    aren't the right-square-bracket.
  - Finally, match the `"$"` character, which means "end of input".
    This means that no "]" character can be matched before the input
    ends.

*/

[
    '[',
    '[aaa',
    'aa[bb',
    '[[[[',
    ']]]]',
    '[aaa]',
    '[aaa[]',
    '][aaa'
].forEach(function(val) {
    console.log('Match "' + val + '"? ' + (reg.test(val) ? 'Yes.' : 'No.'));
});

Regular Expression for matching content between bracket

1 Answers1