Hi I am trying to split a string using regex but the results are different from what I expect.
var text = 'p$blank$a$blank$l$blank$a$blank$c$blank$e$blank$';
> text.split(/(\$blank\$).\1/g);
["p", "$blank$", "l", "$blank$", "c", "$blank$", ""]
what I want is
["p", "$blank$a$blank$",l, "$blank$a$blank$", "c", "$blank$e$blank$"]
This is just as the docs suggest:
If separator is a regular expression that contains capturing parentheses, then each time separator is matched, the results (including any undefined results) of the capturing parentheses are spliced into the output array.
The capturing parentheses only include the first $blank$, so that's what gets included in the array.
If you want the whole split string included, you'll need:
text.split(/(\$blank\$.\$blank\$)/)
["p", "$blank$a$blank$", "l", "$blank$a$blank$", "c", "$blank$e$blank$", ""]
The empty string at the end is expected behavior when split() finds a delimiter at the end of the string.
I don't think you can use (yes, you can), but you can use split to do itmatch with the global flag and an alternation:
var result = text.match(/\$blank\$.\$blank\$|./g);
Visual Regex Explanation, basically it's matching $blank$X$blank or a single character. It'll take the first alternative if it can, and only then look at using the second.
gflag onsplit.