I am trying to split any string into a list of 3-character substrings.
For example: abcdefgh splits into:
abc , bcd , cde , def , efg , fgh
So I wrote the following regex :
"abcd".match(/.{1,3}/g);
but it outputs as abc , d. How could I achieve the output as described above?
Since there can not be overlapping matches, you need to use something that prohibits regex engine from advancing and consuming the string.
The answer is lookarounds, specifically: positive lookahead. It won't consume string and can have captuirng group inside, which you can then access.
Use this pattern: (?=([a-z]{3})). It asserts, that what follows current position are three lowercase letters. Since it's wrapped in lookahead, it won't advance behind found three letters.
In result, you will get 6 matches, which will be empty, but each match will contain capturing group, which will contain three letters.