Regular Expression
• Regular expressions are used to do
sophisticated pattern matching, which can
often be helpful in form validation.
• There are two ways to create a regular
expression in JavaScript:
• Using literal syntax
var pattr1 = /pattern/;
• Using the RegExp() constructor
var pattr1 = new RegExp("pattern");
• Regular Expression Syntax
• A caret (^) at the beginning of a regular
expression indicates that the string being
searched must start with this pattern.
Example:- The pattern ^foo can be found in
"food", but not in "barfood".
• A dollar sign ($) at the end of a regular
expression indicates that the string being
searched must end with this pattern.
Example:- The pattern foo$ can be found in
"curfoo", but not in "food".
• A question mark (?) indicates that the
preceding character should appear zero or
one time in the pattern.
Example:- The pattern foo? can be found in
“food" and "fod", but not “fd".
• A plus sign (+) indicates that the preceding
character should appear one or more times in
the pattern.
Example:- The pattern fo+ can be found in
"fod", "food" and "foood", but not "fd".
• A asterisk (*) indicates that the preceding
character should appear zero or more times in
the pattern.
Example:- The pattern fo*d can be found in
"fd", "fod" and "food".
• Curly brackets with one parameter ( {n} )
indicate that the preceding character should
appear exactly n times in the pattern.
Example:- The pattern fo{3}d can be found in
"foood" , but not "food" or "fooood".
• Curly brackets with two parameters ( {n1,n2} )
indicate that the preceding character should
appear between n1 and n2 times in the
pattern.
Example:- The pattern fo{2,4}d can be found
in "food","foood" and "fooood", but not "fod"
or "foooood".
• Curly brackets with one parameter and an
empty second paramenter ( {n,} ) indicate that
the preceding character should appear at least
n times in the pattern.
Example:- The pattern fo{2,}d can be found in
"food" and "foooood", but not "fod".
Common Characters ( . \d \D \w \W \s \S )
• A period ( . ) represents any character except a
newline.
Example:- The pattern fo.d can be found in
"food", "foad", "fo9d", and "fo*d".
• Backslash-d ( \d ) represents any digit. It is the
equivalent of [0-9].
Example:- The pattern fo\dd can be found in
"fo1d", "fo4d" and "fo0d", but not in "food" or
"fodd".
• Backslash-D ( \D ) represents any character
except a digit. It is the equivalent of [^0-9].
Example:- The pattern fo\Dd can be found in
"food" and "foad", but not in "fo4d".
• Backslash-w ( \w ) represents any word
character (letters, digits, and the underscore
(_) ).
Example:- The pattern fo\wd can be found in
"food", "fo_d" and "fo4d", but not in "fo*d".
• Backslash-W ( \W ) represents any character
except a word character.
Example:- The pattern fo\Wd can be found in
"fo*d", "fo@d" and "fo.d", but not in "food".
• Backslash-s ( \s) represents any whitespace
character (e.g, space, tab, newline, etc.).
Example:- The pattern fo\sd can be found in "fo
d", but not in "food".
• Backslash-S ( \S ) represents any character except
a whitespace character.
Example:- The pattern fo\Sd can be found in
"fo*d", "food" and "fo4d", but not in "fo d".
• Square brackets ( [] ) are used to match any
character inside it.
Example 1:- The pattern f[aeiou]d can be
found in "fad" and "fed", but not in "food",
"faed" or "fd".
Example 2:-The pattern f[aeiou]{2}d can be
found in "faed" and "feod", but not in "fod",
"fed" or "fd".
• Negation ( ^ )
• When used after the first character of the
regular expression, the caret ( ^ ) is used for
negation.
Example:- The pattern f[^aeiou]d can be found
in "fqd" and "f4d", but not in "fad" or "fed".
• Subpatterns ()
• Parentheses () are used to capture
subpatterns.
Example:- The pattern f(oo)?d can be found in
"food" and "fd", but not in "fod".
• Alternatives ( | )
• The pipe ( | ) is used to create optional
patterns.
Example:- The pattern foo$|^bar can be
found in "foo" and "bar", but not "foobar".
• Escape Character ( \ )
• The backslash ( \ ) is used to escape special
characters.
Example:- The pattern fo\.d can be found in
"fo.d", but not in "food" or "fo4d".
• Flags
• Flags appearing after the end slash modify
how a regular expression works.
• The i flag makes a regular expression case
insensitive.
Example:- /aeiou/i matches all lowercase and
uppercase vowels.
• The g flag specifies a global match, meaning
that all matches of the specified pattern
should be returned.
