regEx with JavaScript

Question

I would to get sting with parsing txt file, my string is:

[INFO] Total time: 12 minutes 10 seconds

I need is only "12 minutes 10 seconds"

my expression is:

/Total time: [0-9]* minute[a-z]* [0-9]* second[a-z]*/

it works perfectly, but if sting is only 1 minute it does not work...

how to get all sting after "Total time:" ?

• Kae Verens: that's not a very useful comment, @Esailija
• Esailija: @KaeVerens, I swear I saw exactly the same question, regex, and string to match just a few days ago :D Cannot find it though, but it doesn't get more duplicate than that :P
• nnnnnn: @Roman - if you need the part starting with "12" (in your example), why is your regex including "Total time: "? Do you want the words "Total time: " in your output or not?

Answer 1

Try this:

/Total time: ([0-9]* minutes?)?( ?[0-9]* seconds?)*/

You need a ? to match 0 or 1 preceding.

• Grrbrr404: I like your solution more then my own: Total time: [0-9]* minute[a-z]* [0-9]* second[a-z]*|[0-9]* minute[a-z]*
• Roman Iuvshin: great! but.. what about if string contain only seconds? for ex. Total time: 22 sedonds?
• Abdul Munim: There's a space matching was missing. See the updated expression

Answer 2

You could turn that seconds part into a subgroup and make it optional via the '?'

/Total time: [0-9]* minutes?( [0-9]* seconds?)?/

• nnnnnn: +1 for being the first person to fix the optional "s" in "minutes" and "seconds".

Answer 3

let's say the line is line

line=line.replace(/^\[INFO\] Total time: /, '');