passing variable to a regexp in javascript

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Escape string for use in Javascript regex

I have a msg like this:

Max {0} chars allowed in {1}

And I have a function to create a message using the arguments passed as

for(var i = 0; i < agrs.length; i++){
    reg = new RegExp('\{'+i+'\}', 'gi');
    key = key.replace(reg,agrs[i])
}

The problem is that it's not able to take the param i to create the reg exp.

What's the way to achieve this?

@casperOne, what is the duplicate? Neither [this question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4029109/javascript-regex-how-to-put-a-variable-inside-a-regular-expression) nor [this question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/494035/how-do-you-pass-a-variable-to-a-regular-expression-javascript) were the same as this question. This question is important because it shows actually mixing a string variable into a regex pattern, whereas the other questions' answers only provided examples where escaping characters was not an issue. — MandM, Dec 04 '15 at 13:08
I agree with MandM. And given that this question has been marked by duplicate we cannot update the answers with ES6 JS, and people will keep using verbose JS. @casperOne can you unmark this as duplicate? — Daniel Reina, Aug 13 '18 at 14:10

score 58 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 25 '14 at 21:21

58

Your regexp is /{0}/gi since you create it from a string. And it is not a valid expression. You need to escape { in the regexp because it has a special meaning in the regexp syntax, so it should be:

new RegExp('\\{'+i+'\\}', 'gi');

which is /\\{0\\}/gi. You need to escape the escaping \\ in the string.

edited Oct 25 '14 at 21:21

Community

1
1

answered Jan 28 '09 at 13:12

artificialidiot

5,309
29
27

score 6 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:31

I would strongly encourage you to use the functional form of String.replace() to solve your problem, rather than trying to parametrize the regexp in a for-loop that iterates over {0},{1},etc.

In other words, rather than look for '{0}' or '{1}', just look for '{([0-9]+)}' (i.e. {}'s surrounding an arbitrary number, and pass a function to the replace() function to intelligently replace these expressions based on the number between the {}'s. This lets you use a RegExp literal which you can write as /{([0-9]+)}/ rather than mess around with escape characters in strings.

Something like this:

s='the song says {0} little {1} little {2} little-endians';
args=['zero','one','two'];
new_string = s.replace(/{([0-9]+)}/g, function(wholematch,firstmatch)
  {return args[(+firstmatch)]; }
);

which yields

the song says zero little one little two little-endians

See this similar question.

edit: if you want to leave alone items that are greater than the length of your args list, make sure to sanity-check the parameter number:

s='the song says {0} little {1} little {2} little-endians,\n'+
  ' {3} little {4} little {5} little-endians';
args=['zero','one','two'];
new_string = s.replace(/{([0-9]+)}/g, function(wholematch,firstmatch)
  {var i = +firstmatch; return i < args.length ? args[i] : wholematch;}
);

which yields

the song says zero little one little two little-endians,
 {3} little {4} little {5} little-endians

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 28 '09 at 12:54

3

I think your second line is supposed to be

reg = new RegExp('\{'+i+'\}', 'gi');

but I don't know if that's your only problem or not.

answered Jan 28 '09 at 12:54

Gareth

133,157
36
148
157

Yep it is like that, but it does not allow to create one. Says "invalid quantifier". – Nrj Jan 28 '09 at 12:57

score 1 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:09

1

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

var re = new RegExp(escapeRegExp(str));

See: Escape string for use in Javascript regex

edited May 23 '17 at 12:09

Community

1
1

answered Mar 02 '12 at 17:09

coolaj86

74,004
20
105
125

passing variable to a regexp in javascript

4 Answers4

Linked