given:
var regexp = new RegExp("<~~include(.*?)~~>", "g");
What's the easist way in javascript to assign a variable to whatever's matched by .*?
I can do this, but it's a little ugly:
myString.match(regexp).replace("<~~include", "").replace("~~>", "");
JavaScript should return an array object on a regex match, where the zero index of the array is the whole string that was matched, and the following indexes are the capture groups. In your case, something like:
var myVar = regexp.exec(myString)[1];
Should assign the value of the (.*?) capture group to myVar.
(Quotes from MDC)
Including parentheses in a regular expression pattern causes the corresponding submatch to be remembered. For example,
/a(b)c/matches the characters'abc'and remembers'b'.
Since .*? is the first (and only) remembered match, use $1 in your replacement string:
var foo = myString.replace(regexp, '$1');
Edit: As per your comment, you can also (perhaps with clearer intention) do this:
var foo = regexp.exec(myString)[1];
replace version is less clear than the intention of the exec version. In either case, you have to assign the value returned by replace/exec to another variable.You can use lookahead for part of this regular expression. See here:
Regular expression for extracting a number
and/or here:
