No white space at beginning + allow space in the middle

Question

I have this regex for detecting @xxx

/(?:@)(.*[a-zA-Z0-9]*)/

it matches even when the @xxx is not separated from another string from the left (when it's typed in the middle of an input line).

xxx@xxx will match too so i added \s to require a space in the begining .Now it's

/\s(?:@)(.*[a-zA-Z0-9]*)/

But the problem is there isn't a match when the @xxx is typed in the begining of a line (the white space is still required) and i need it match in that case.

I tried to get inspired by https://stackoverflow.com/a/19973707/170592 so i added ^[^-\s] in the begining of the regex to make it

/^[^-\s](?:@)(.*[a-zA-Z0-9]*)/

But it didn't work neither.

If you want to match start of a line or whitespace, use `/(?:^|\s)@(.*)/gm`. Note `[a-zA-Z0-9]*` is meaningless after `.*`. See more [here](https://stackoverflow.com/a/55777608/3832970). — Wiktor Stribiżew, Mar 31 '21 at 19:00
Yes, or `(?<!\S)@(.*)` or `(?<!\S)@[a-zA-Z0-9]+` matching only the characters from the character class. — The fourth bird, Mar 31 '21 at 19:01

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 31 '21 at 19:13

0

I think that what you are looking for it is /\S+/ which means that check for any non-whitespace and I don't think you need the ^ at the beginning.

[-\S+](?:@)(.*[a-zA-Z0-9]*)

answered Mar 31 '21 at 19:13

wonder.glen

46
7

No white space at beginning + allow space in the middle

1 Answers1