Extracting JSON from string using regex

Question

I need to get the value of item inside of this string and parse it as JSON. I've got some working code but I feel like it could be optimized (a lot) and cleaned up (a lot). Any tips or pointers are appreciated. Thanks!

My current code:

let result = script.match(/item:(.*|[\s\S]*)onSelected/gm)[0];
result = result.replace('onSelected', '').replace('item:', '').trim().slice(0, -1);
JSON.parse(result);

Here's the string of javascript I need to pull from:

jQuery(function($) {
 new Selector('itemSelect', {
 item: {"id":9343513159,"title":"The thing","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis is the description\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt has details\u003c\/p\u003e\n","published_at":"2016-12-10T10:08:00-05:00","available":true,"individuals":[{"id":34972221767},{"id":34972221768},{"id":34972221769}],"images":["\/\/cdn.site.com\/s\/files\/1\/0094\/2252\/items\/image.jpg?v=1481382473"],"options":["Time"],"content":""},
 onSelected: selectCallback,
 enableState: true
 });
 // Some stuff here
 $('.main:eq(0)').prepend('<label class="forever" for="time">Forever</label>');
});
window.mainItem = window.mainItem || {};
mainItem.variables = {
 available : false
};
(function() {
 if (true) {
 mainItem.variables.available = true;
 }
})();

• Tushar: Can you add complete code of Selector function? I'm assuming the code you've wrote is inside it. So, there is no need of regex to extract value from object.

Answer 1

• Use .exec to match a group
• Add comma removed by slice directly into the regexp
• Use capturing groups: query for [1], not for [0]

let script = document.getElementById('source').text;
var result = /item:(.*|[\s\S]*),\s*onSelected/gm.exec(script)[1];
console.log(JSON.parse(result));

<script id="source" type="text/plain">
jQuery(function($) {
 
 new Selector('itemSelect', {
 item: {"id":9343513159,"title":"The thing","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis is the description\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt has details\u003c\/p\u003e\n","published_at":"2016-12-10T10:08:00-05:00","available":true,"individuals":[{"id":34972221767},{"id":34972221768},{"id":34972221769}],"images":["\/\/cdn.site.com\/s\/files\/1\/0094\/2252\/items\/image.jpg?v=1481382473"],"options":["Time"],"content":""},
 onSelected: selectCallback,
 enableState: true
 });
 
 
 // Some stuff here
 
 $('.main:eq(0)').prepend('<label class="forever" for="time">Forever</label>');
 
 });
 
 window.mainItem = window.mainItem || {};
 
 mainItem.variables = {
 available : false
 };
 
 (function() {
 if (true) {
 mainItem.variables.available = true;
 }
 })()
</script>