Regex: String match including punctuation

Question

From another question, I have this expression to match words in a sentence:

var sentence = "Exclamation! Question? Full stop. Ellipsis...";
console.log(sentence.toLowerCase().match(/\w+(?:'\w+)*/g));

It works perfectly. However, now I am looking for a way to match exclamation marks, question marks, and full stops separately. The result should look like this:

[
  "exclamation",
  "!",
  "question",
  "?",
  "full",
  "stop",
  ".",
  "ellipsis",
  "."
]

Only matching one dot from the ellipsis, not all three dots separately.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

@Sweeper Thank you but not quite, I only want to match the first ellipsis, not all dots separately — MysteryPancake, Jul 29 '18 at 03:19
Also, that version doesn't work with words containing apostrophes, such as "doesn't", "wouldn't", etc. — MysteryPancake, Jul 29 '18 at 03:20

Pawan Singh · Answer 1 · 2018-07-29T03:59:36.573

3

Try Below Code

var sentence = "Exclamation! Question? Full stop. Ellipsis...";
console.log(sentence.toLowerCase().match(/[?!.]|\w+/g));

In case You want only one dot, you could use something like ---

var sentence = "Exclamation!!! Question??? Full stop. Ellipsis...";

var arr = sentence.toLowerCase().match(/[?]+|[!]+|[.]+|\w+/g);
arr = arr.map(function(item){
 return item.replace(/(.)\1+/g, "$1");
})

console.log(arr);

edited Jul 29 '18 at 03:59

answered Jul 29 '18 at 02:45

Pawan Singh

824
6
13

Thank you, almost, but I only want the first ellipsis to be matched, not all dots after it – MysteryPancake Jul 29 '18 at 03:18
1

I have Edited my answer now it sholud work for you @MysteryPancake – Pawan Singh Jul 29 '18 at 04:00
Thank you! Sorry I keep bothering you, but I was really hoping it could be done with regular expressions only. I might wait for another answer since I am awful at regex – MysteryPancake Jul 29 '18 at 04:43

mickmackusa · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-30T13:41:45.963

2

How about using a word boundary to only return one dot from the ellipsis?

var sentence = "Exclamation! Question? Full stop. Ellipsis...";
console.log(sentence.toLowerCase().match(/[a-z]+(?:'[a-z]+)*|\b[!?.]/g));

Or a negative lookahead:

var sentence = "Exclamation! Question? Full stop. Ellipsis...";
console.log(sentence.toLowerCase().match(/[a-z]+(?:'[a-z]+)*|[!?.](?![!?.])/g));

After your commented scenario extension, a negative lookbehind seems to be effective.

var sentence = "You're \"Pregnant\"??? How'd This Happen?! The vasectomy YOUR 1 job. Let's \"talk this out\"...";
console.log(sentence.toLowerCase().match(/[a-z\d]+(?:'[a-z\d]+)*|(?<![!?.])[!?.]/g));

edited Jul 30 '18 at 13:41

answered Jul 29 '18 at 05:05

mickmackusa

43,625
12
83
136

1

@MysteryPancake If you have fringe cases that break my pattern please update your question and leave me a comment. – mickmackusa Jul 29 '18 at 05:06
1

I had completely forgotten about negative lookahead, thanks for reminding. – Pawan Singh Jul 29 '18 at 05:51
@mickmackusa Thank you so much, this works perfectly! Just one small request - would it be possible for this to work for numbers as well? Do I just need to replace `[a-z]` with `\w`? – MysteryPancake Jul 29 '18 at 06:00
Also, would it be possible for it to match [!?.] after quotes, such as `'text'.`, `"text"?` or `'text'!`. This may be a bit too complicated, sorry – MysteryPancake Jul 29 '18 at 06:09
1

Perhaps a negative lookbehind will serve your purposes. I added another demo with a new pattern and sample string. – mickmackusa Jul 29 '18 at 12:16
@mickmackusa Thank you so much, yet again! Everything appears to work perfectly now. Sorry for a dumb question, but I am just wondering, what is the difference between [a-z\d] and \w? Is there a reason you are using that instead? – MysteryPancake Jul 30 '18 at 13:34
1

`\w` includes underscores (with numbers and letters). I am sacrificing pattern brevity for pattern accuracy / pattern intent. You can use `\w` if you wish. Actually, because of the conversion to lowercase, I'll drop the `i` pattern modifier at the end. – mickmackusa Jul 30 '18 at 13:38

Regex: String match including punctuation

2 Answers2

Linked