Regular Expression Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition

Name

RegExp

Models a regular expression, and contains methods for pattern matching.

Constructor

new RegExp(pattern, attributes)/pattern/attributes

RegExp objects can be created with either the RegExp( ) constructor, or a special literal syntax /.../. The parameter pattern is a required regular expression pattern, and the parameter attributes is an optional string containing any of the mode modifiers g, i, or m. The parameter pattern can also be a RegExp object, but then the attributes parameter becomes required.

The constructor can throw two exceptions. SyntaxError is thrown if pattern is malformed, or if attributes contains invalid mode modifiers. TypeError is thrown if pattern is a RegExp object, and the attributes parameter is omitted.

Instance properties

global

Boolean indicating whether RegExp has g attribute.

ignoreCase

Boolean indicating whether RegExp has i attribute.

lastIndex

The character position of the last match.

multiline

Boolean indicating whether RegExp has m attribute.

source

The text pattern used to create this object.

Methods

exec(text)

Search text, and return an array of strings if the search succeeds, and null if it fails. Element 0 of the array contains the substring matched by the entire regular expression. Additional elements correspond to capture groups.

If the global flag (g) is set, then lastIndex is set to the character position after the match, or zero if there was no match. Successive exec( ) or test( ) calls will start at lastIndex. Note that lastIndex is a property ...