Regular Expression match in javascript

Question

I have the string SUM([A2:A10],[B2:B10],[C2:C10],[D2:D10]) and I need to get the elements [A2:A10],[B2:B10],[C2:C10],[D2:D10] in an array, so I used match() in js. The code snippet is

var formula = "SUM([A2:A10],[B2:B10],[C2:C10],[D2:D10])";
var reg = /\[(a-zA-Z0-9)+\]/;
matches = formula.match(reg);

But I am not getting the match. I hope the regular expression is wrong. I am very poor in building regular expression. What will be the correct regular expression?

Answer 1

Try it like this:

var formula = 'SUM([A2:A10],[B2:B10],[C2:C10],[D2:D10])';
var reg = /\[\w+:\w+\]/g;
matches = formula.match(reg);

Output:

["[A2:A10]", "[B2:B10]", "[C2:C10]", "[D2:D10]"]

Your regex was in the right direction, but didn't include the colon and captured individual characters. The \w escape sequence I used is a shortcut for a word character ([a-zA-Z0-9_]), makes it more readable. The g flag is necessary to get all matches instead of just the first one.

Answer 2

var formula = "SUM([A2:A10],[B2:B10],[C2:C10],[D2:D10])";
var reg = /\[.*?\]/g;
matches = formula.match(reg);

• Jaison Justus: can you explain the regex /[.*?]/g!!
• Another Code: @JaisonJustus: .* basically means 'match anything', and the ? right after it makes the quantifier lazy so it doesn't match the rest of the input string too, but only up to the next ].
• Diode: \[ - pattern starts with [, \] - pattern ends with ], . - match any character, * - zero or more, ? - matches each block of []
• Has QUIT--Anony-Mousse: I usually prefer a more explicit match, but I like your minimalistic approach. It gets messy once he wants to avoid e.g. empty brackets "[]", when you need to constrain the dot.

Answer 3

var str = "SUM([A2:A10],[B2:B10],[C2:C10],[D2:D10])";
var matches = str.match(/\[[A-Z0-9:]+\]/g);
alert(matches);​

Note, you use the g flag on the regex to get all the matches.

You can see it working here: http://jsfiddle.net/jfriend00/aTrLU/

Answer 4

The regex you need is

/\[[A-Z][0-9]+:[A-Z][0-9]+\]/gi

The g modifier indicates that we should do a global mtching and return all the results, not just the first

The i modifier indicates that we need a case-insensitive matching

An assumption made is that you don't want to include [E2:E10:], because of extra semicolon

Answer 5

Your regexp doesn't include the colon :.

Try this: /\[([0-9A-Z:]+)\]/ , in particular why I have quoted and unquoted square brackets there.

Plus, your input string isn't quoted.

Answer 6

I believe you forgot the quotes. Also, what you need is also the global flag. Here the code:

var formula = "SUM([A2:A10],[B2:B10],[C2:C10],[D2:D10])";
var reg = /\[[0-z]+:[0-z]+\]/g;
var matches = formula.match(reg);