Regular Expressions in JavaScript - Day 19 of 100

This post is a part of the Week X of 100DaysOfCode JavaScript Challenge series.

• Positive and Negative Lookahead:

A positive lookahead /(?=...)/ looks for the presence of the pattern in the string. Negative lookahead /(?!...)/ looks for the absence of the pattern in the string.

console.log("quit".match(/q(?=u)/)); // returns ["q"] because "u" is present after "q"
console.log("qtui".match(/q(?!u)/)); // returns ["q"] because "u" is not present after "q"

• Check For Mixed Grouping of Characters:

Sometimes we want to look for a mixed group of characters, either this or that.

Example 1

let myString = "Eleanor Roosevelt";
let myRegex = /(Eleanor|Franklin).*Roosevelt/g;
let result = myRegex.test(myString);

console.log(result) // true

Example 2

let testStr = "Pumpkin";
let testRegex = /P(engu|umpk)in/;
console.log(testRegex.test(testStr)); // true

• Reuse Patterns Using Capture Groups:

Capture Groups are regex patterns enclosed in parenthesis. For example, \w+ is a regex pattern that matches an alphanumeric word. So the corresponding capture group will /(\w+)/.

We can reuse these capture groups within the same regex pattern. Capture groups saved in temporary variables. To reuse the capture group, access it by a backslash followed by the number of the capture group. Capture groups are numbered automatically based on the opening parenthesis from left to right.

Example 1

let repeatStr = "row row row your boat";
let repeatRegex = /(\w+) \1 \1/;
console.log(repeatRegex.test(repeatStr)); // Returns true
console.log(repeatStr.match(repeatRegex)); // Returns ["row row row", "row"]

Example 2

let repeatRegex = /(\w+) \1 (\d+) \2/;
let repeatStr = "row row 2211 2211 your boat";
console.log(repeatRegex.test(repeatStr)); // Returns true
console.log(repeatStr.match(repeatRegex)); // Returns ["row row 2211 2211", "row", "2211"]

• Use Capture Groups to Search and Replace:

We can replace a substring inside a string using the replace() function in the way "some string".replace(/someregex/, "replacement"). We can use capture groups in the replacement string to conveniently swap the words like in the example below.

console.log("Code Camp".replace(/(\w+)\s(\w+)/, "$2 $1")); // "Camp Code"

• Remove Whitespace from Start and End:

We can remove any whate space characters from the start and end of a string using the trim() function. But how can remove them using regex? Here is how

let hello = "   Hello, World!  ";
let wsRegex = /^\s+|\s+$/g;
let result = hello.replace(wsRegex, "");
console.log(result); // returns "Hello, World!"

And the with this the Regular Expressions module of the JavaScript course was completed.