Regular expression in javascript

Question

I would like to match this regexp in javascript:

com\..*</div>

As you can see I want to have com. and then anything and then </div>. But in javascript this is not working, it always founds the com/jdksf</div> not the com.fdsfd<div> text. Any idea why is that?

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Edit: My code looks like this:

var patt1=new RegExp("com\..*</div>");
alert(patt1.exec(document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0].innerHTML));

• Benubird: Post your actual code please - can't tell anything from such a short description.
• Gareth: The code you included in your edit doesn't have any \escape characters at all
• Infinite Possibilities: Added, I used this \escape, but it isn't working
• Nick Craver: you need a double escape because it's a string, see my answer below :)

Answer 1

You need to escape the ., like this:

var patt1=new RegExp("com\\..*</div>");

The double backslash is because it's a string, so \\. is really \. in the regex. Or, declare it as a regex object directly:

var patt1 = /com\..*<\/div>/;

You can test both versions here.

• Benubird: won't solve the problem though - '.' matches anything, including the literal '.' character.
• Nick Craver: @Benubird - this is escaping it, so it's \. in the end, which is a literal match.
• Benubird: Right, what I meant was, if it's not matching com.foo with com..*, changing it to con\..* won't help - but I see I misread the question, your solution is correct in this case. +1
• Infinite Possibilities: I think this will be ok, I just have some problem, hold on, I try to resolve it.
• Infinite Possibilities: Does it matter if I have a line break before the </div>. I don't think so.