I am in need for a regex in Javascript. I have a string:
'*window.some1.some\.2.(a.b + ")" ? cc\.c : d.n [a.b, cc\.c]).some\.3.(this.o.p ? ".mike." [ff\.]).some5'
I want to split this string by periods such that I get an array:
[
'*window',
'some1',
'some\.2', //ignore the . because it's escaped
'(a.b ? cc\.c : d.n [a.b, cc\.c])', //ignore everything inside ()
'some\.3',
'(this.o.p ? ".mike." [ff\.])',
'some5'
]
What regex will do this?
var string = '*window.some1.some\\.2.(a.b + ")" ? cc\\.c : d.n [a.b, cc\\.c]).some\\.3.(this.o.p ? ".mike." [ff\\.]).some5';
var pattern = /(?:\((?:(['"])\)\1|[^)]+?)+\)+|\\\.|[^.]+?)+/g;
var result = string.match(pattern);
result = Array.apply(null, result); //Convert RegExp match to an Array
Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/66Zfh/3/
Explanation of the RegExp. Match a consecutive set of characters, satisfying:
/ Start of RegExp literal
(?: Create a group without reference (example: say, group A)
\( `(` character
(?: Create a group without reference (example: say, group B)
(['"]) ONE `'` OR `"`, group 1, referable through `\1` (inside RE)
\) `)` character
\1 The character as matched at group 1, either `'` or `"`
| OR
[^)]+? Any non-`)` character, at least once (see below)
)+ End of group (B). Let this group occur at least once
| OR
\\\. `\.` (escaped backslash and dot, because they're special chars)
| OR
[^.]+? Any non-`.` character, at least once (see below)
)+ End of group (A). Let this group occur at least once
/g "End of RegExp, global flag"
/*Summary: Match everything which is not satisfying the split-by-dot
condition as specified by the OP*/
There's a difference between + and +?. A single plus attempts to match as much characters as possible, while a +? matches only these characters which are necessary to get the RegExp match. Example: 123 using \d+? > 1 and \d+ > 123.
The String.match method performs a global match, because of the /g, global flag. The match function with the g flag returns an array consisting of all matches subsequences.
When the g flag is omitted, only the first match will be selected. The array will then consist of the following elements:
Index 0: <Whole match>
Index 1: <Group 1>
The regex below :
result = subject.match(/(?:(\(.*?[^'"]\)|.*?[^\\])(?:\.|$))/g);
Can be used to acquire the desired results. Group 1 has the results since you want to omit the .
Use this :
var myregexp = /(?:(\(.*?[^'"]\)|.*?[^\\])(?:\.|$))/g;
var match = myregexp.exec(subject);
while (match != null) {
for (var i = 0; i < match.length; i++) {
// matched text: match[i]
}
match = myregexp.exec(subject);
}
Explanation :
// (?:(\(.*?[^'"]\)|.*?[^\\])(?:\.|$))
//
// Match the regular expression below «(?:(\(.*?[^'"]\)|.*?[^\\])(?:\.|$))»
// Match the regular expression below and capture its match into backreference number 1 «(\(.*?[^'"]\)|.*?[^\\])»
// Match either the regular expression below (attempting the next alternative only if this one fails) «\(.*?[^'"]\)»
// Match the character “(” literally «\(»
// Match any single character that is not a line break character «.*?»
// Between zero and unlimited times, as few times as possible, expanding as needed (lazy) «*?»
// Match a single character NOT present in the list “'"” «[^'"]»
// Match the character “)” literally «\)»
// Or match regular expression number 2 below (the entire group fails if this one fails to match) «.*?[^\\]»
// Match any single character that is not a line break character «.*?»
// Between zero and unlimited times, as few times as possible, expanding as needed (lazy) «*?»
// Match any character that is NOT a “A \ character” «[^\\]»
// Match the regular expression below «(?:\.|$)»
// Match either the regular expression below (attempting the next alternative only if this one fails) «\.»
// Match the character “.” literally «\.»
// Or match regular expression number 2 below (the entire group fails if this one fails to match) «$»
// Assert position at the end of the string (or before the line break at the end of the string, if any) «$»
It is notoriously difficult to use a Regex to do balanced parenthesis matching, especially in Javascript.
You would be way better off creating your own parser. Here's a clever way to do this that will utilize the strength of Regex's:
/(?:(\\.)|([\(\[\{])|([\)\]\}])|(\.))/g string.replace(pattern, function (...)), and in the function, keep a count of opening braces and closing braces.This solution will take a bit of work, and requires knowledge of closures, and you should probably see the documentation of string.replace, but I think it is a great way to solve your problem!
Update:
After noticing the number of questions related to this one, I decided to take on the above challenge.
Here is the live code to use a Regex to split a string.
This code has the following features:
\This code will work perfectly for your example.
not need regex for this work.
var s = '*window.some1.some\.2.(a.b + ")" ? cc\.c : d.n [a.b, cc\.c]).some\.3.(this.o.p ? ".mike." [ff\.]).some5';
console.log(s.match(/(?:\([^\)]+\)|.*?\.)/g));
output:
["*window.", "some1.", "some.", "2.", "(a.b + ")", "" ? cc.", "c : d.", "n [a.", "b, cc.", "c]).", "some.", "3.", "(this.o.p ? ".mike." [ff.])", "."]
So, was working with this, and now I see that @FailedDev is rather not a failure, since that was pretty nice. :)
Anyhow, here's my solution. I'll just post the regex only.
((\(.*?((?<!")\)(?!")))|((\\\.)|([^.]))+)
Sadly this won't work in your case however, since I'm using negative lookbehind, which I don't think is supported by javascript regex engine. It should work as intended in other engines however, as can be confirmed here: http://gskinner.com/RegExr/. Replace with $1\n.
