converting RegExp to String then back to RegExp
JavascriptRegexJavascript Problem Overview
So I have a RegExp regex = /asd/
I am storing it as a as a key in my key-val store system.
So I say str = String(regex)
which returns "/asd/"
.
Now I need to convert that string back to a RegExp.
So I try: RegExp(str)
and I see /\/asd\//
this is not what I want. It is not the same as /asd/
Should I just remove the first and last characters from the string before converting it to regex? That would get me the desired result in this situation, but wouldn't necessarily work if the RegExp had modifiers like /i
or /g
Is there a better way to do this?
Javascript Solutions
Solution 1 - Javascript
If you don't need to store the modifiers, you can use Regexp#source
to get the string value, and then convert back using the RegExp
constructor.
var regex = /abc/g;
var str = regex.source; // "abc"
var restoreRegex = new RegExp(str, "g");
If you do need to store the modifiers, use a regex to parse the regex:
var regex = /abc/g;
var str = regex.toString(); // "/abc/g"
var parts = /\/(.*)\/(.*)/.exec(str);
var restoredRegex = new RegExp(parts[1], parts[2]);
This will work even if the pattern has a /
in it, because .*
is greedy, and will advance to the last /
in the string.
If performance is a concern, use normal string manipulation using String#lastIndexOf
:
var regex = /abc/g;
var str = regex.toString(); // "/abc/g"
var lastSlash = str.lastIndexOf("/");
var restoredRegex = new RegExp(str.slice(1, lastSlash), str.slice(lastSlash + 1));
Solution 2 - Javascript
const regex = /asd/gi;
converting RegExp to String
const obj = {flags: regex.flags, source: regex.source};
const string = JSON.stringify(obj);
then back to RegExp
const obj2 = JSON.parse(string);
const regex2 = new RegExp(obj2.source, obj2.flags);
Requires ES6+.
Solution 3 - Javascript
You can use the following before storage of your regex literal:
(new RegExp(regex)).source
See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/RegExp/source
Example:
regex = /asd/
string = (new RegExp(regex)).source
// string is now "asd"
regex = RegExp(string)
// regex has the original value /asd/
Solution 4 - Javascript
let rx = RegExp.apply(RegExp, str.match(/\/(.*)\/(.*)/).slice(1));
A modified version of @PegasusEpsilon answer
Solution 5 - Javascript
StackOverflow saves the day again, thanks @4castle! I wanted to store some regex rules in a JS file, and some in a DB, combine them into an array of objects like so:
module.exports = {
[SETTINGS.PRODUCTION_ENV]: [
{
"key": /<meta name="generator"[\s\S]*?>/gmi,
"value": "",
"regex": true
},
...
]
}
Then, loop through each environment's objects and apply it to a string of text. This is for a node/lambda project, so I wanted to use ES6. I used @4castle's code, with some destructuring, and I ended up with this:
let content = body;
const regexString = replacement.key.toString();
const regexParts = /\/(.*)\/(.*)/.exec(regexString);
const {1: source, 2: flags} = regexParts;
const regex = new RegExp(source, flags);
content = content.replace(regex, replacement.value);
return content;
Works a treat!