How to parse in javascript all regex between one or more parentheses

Question

I'm trying to parse all of the text between one or more parentheses and return an array.

For example:

var string = "((CID:34746) OR (CID:8097)) ((CID:34277 OR CID:67300))";
var regex = /\(([^()]+)\)/g;
var results = string.match(regex);
// should result in ["CID:34746","CID:8097","CID:34277 OR CID:67300"]
// but instead is ["(CID:34746)", "(CID:8097)", "(CID:34277 OR CID:67300)"]

I've had 3 people on my team try to find a solution and nobody has. I've looked at all the ones I can find on SO and otherwise. (This one is where I posted the above regex from...)

The closest I've gotten is: /([^()]+)/g.

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 01 '11 at 00:44

5

.match() will return an array of whole matches only, if you use the global modifier. Use .exec() ^[MDN] instead:

var match,
    results = [];

while(match = regex.exec(string)) {
    results.push(match[1]);
}

answered Oct 01 '11 at 00:44

Felix Kling

795,719
175
1,089
1,143

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 01 '11 at 00:46

Your regex is correct you're just not using it right:

var string = "((CID:34746) OR (CID:8097)) ((CID:34277 OR CID:67300))";
var regex = /\(([^()]+)\)/g;
var desiredResults = [];
var results;
while( results = regex.exec(string) ) {
    desiredResults.push( results[1] );
}
// now desiredResults is ["CID:34746","CID:8097","CID:34277 OR CID:67300"]

How to parse in javascript all regex between one or more parentheses

2 Answers2